Hypnosis admin on 14 Dec 2009 09:46 pm
Stop Grinding Your Teeth
You may or may not know that you grind your teeth.
Maybe someone close to you lets you know or – depending on how subtle your other half is at breaking this kind of news – your dentist will casually ask you if you often grind your teeth.
However you discover the problem, is there anything you can do to stop grinding your teeth?
The most drastic option is to wear a mouth guard at night (which is when most tooth grinding takes place). But this is likely to feel awkard, especially at first.
Chances are that your unconscious tooth gnashing is caused by something. Maybe you’re stressed. In which case it would be a good idea to identify the cause of that stress and try to either lessen it (not always easy, especially if the stress is work related) or overcome it.
Certain substances increase your stress. You can probably guess it’s the usual suspects: caffeine in drinks such as cola and coffee and, of course, alcohol. If you can, cut down on these items.
Gradually decrease your caffeine intake – better to do this than face the stress of going cold turkey on it. Drink it earlier in the day rather than later.
Alcohol is not as easy to relegate to earlier in the day. After all, you’ve likely got work to do. So you’ll need to work out a different strategy for that. Maybe weaker drinks or alternating an alcoholic drink with a non-alcoholic one.
Relaxation is good as well. This could take the form of listening to music you find relaxing. A nice warm bath before you go to bed. Or possibly yoga or meditation.
Another option is to listen to a custom-made hypnosis track. This will have the double benefit of relaxing you as well as helping your subconscious mind to adjust how it deals with the stresses and strains that are causing you to grind your teeth.
You can download a hypnosis track to help you stop grinding your teeth here.
on 25 Mar 2010 at 12:33 am 1.Doug Slater said …
I used to wear a gum shield at night. They’re not so bad as long as you get a soft gel one. Since then though I’ve used self hypnosis to combat bruxism and I’ve been alright ever since.