Do you suffer from any of the following: sore neck, grinding your teeth during the day, headaches in the morning or throughout the day? If you answered YES to any of these questions, chances are that you are under some form of stress. Let’s be honest, most of us suffer from stress throughout each day; stress can be a huge problem for many of us!
There are many things to help you find what stress reliever best fits you to lessen the effects of stress! We have found that taking just a few minutes each day to regroup and gather your thoughts, that alone can greatly decrease your level of stress. Stress can impact a lot of things within our daily routines; It can change our mood, our appetite, and the overall health of our bodies. There are both long-term and short-term lasting effects of stress on the body.
People tend to “carry” their stress in different parts of their bodies. One of the main areas that we focus on here at The Loft is how stress affects your mouth and teeth. We often see patients with excellent oral health care, but they still have teeth cracking or breaking down. We can tell right away by looking at a patient’s teeth exactly whether or not this is the case. To help fight this, we offer an option for our patients to wear a mouth guard nightly. This helps relax and shut down the muscle function at night, just like we should.
We manage stress in several different ways. Writing daily in a journal and working out are two great ways we release stress. Other stress-relievers we use are reading books, taking long walks or jogs along Lake Michigan’s shore, trips to warm weather where we can be in a more creative mind-space, and massages to help our bodies release toxins. Something that’s really been on our minds lately is learning to practice meditation.
There is research out there that shows that meditation can also help with this. There are many books, phone applications, articles, and retreats one can attend to learn to meditate. It has shown to take away some or all of your stress. Meditation not only helps take the stress off of your teeth but when our body has time to reflect on positive thoughts, it actually shows an increase in salivation. Salivation helps to neutralize the pH in our mouths, which helps prevent decay from happening.
As you can see, your oral health can be impacted by the amount of stress you have in your life! Please give us a call if you’d like more information on nightguards.