5 Helpful Tips For Teeth Grinding

Drs. Ogle, Schmitz, Hart, and Fickas want to share some tips in preventing teeth grinding.  Millions of people all over the world grind their teeth.  This terrible habit can cause damage to your enamel and surface of your teeth as well as creating muscle soreness in the jaw, neck, and overall body.

Try These 5 Helpful Tips:

1. Do not chew gum.  This increases the strain on your muscles in your jaw, especially when you chew only on one side of your mouth.  Also, when chewing your food, utilize both sides of your mouth to chew.
2. Work on keeping your mouth in alignment by placing your lips together but keeping your teeth apart.  This will help relax the muscles and decrease the tension in the muscles and decrease grinding.
3. Sit up straight like your parents and teachers always told you to do.  This will place your jaw and body in proper alignment and decreases the tension in the muscles and decrease the grinding.
4. Exercise will decrease stress and decreases the muscle tension and grinding.  Exercise has so many benefits and this is just one of many.
5. Decrease your caffeine intake.  Caffeine increases muscle tension in your body so by decreasing the caffeine intake this will further decrease the tension and decrease teeth grinding.

All of these tips can be beneficial in decreasing the muscle tension in your jaw and can decrease the teeth grinding that occurs due to the high amount of stress, muscle overuse , and poor posture.  Check out this article for further information.   Please contact Family Dentistry with Drs. Ogle, Schmitz, Hart, and Fickas for further recommendations to decrease teeth grinding.