In part 1 we reviewed five of the top 10 ways to stop teeth grinding and clenching (bruxism). While you might not have relished the idea of buying a mouth guard and trying wearing it, maybe the idea of trying out a high-quality mattress topper pad or a good chiropractic treatments sounded like it was a bit more your style. Or maybe you didn't realize that you could try biofeedback to stop tooth grinding for free, or that you could take a Harvard Positive Psychology course for free. Well don't just sit there, go for it. Many people have found these things can make a real difference. Here are the rest of the top ten ways to stop tooth grinding and clenching:
Eliminating things you are allergic to. Some people have found through experimentation that when they eliminate certain foods from their diet, they discover that the amount of teeth grinding and clenching they do reduces drastically. Exercise regularly. Regular exercise changes how you feel. It changes your whole neurological experience of yourself, and those changes can (and often do) reduce many undesirable habits, including tooth grinding and clenching. Hypnosis. Many people think (mistakenly) that hypnosis is letting someone else put you under their control, so they can make you cluck like a chicken. Actually the clinical definition of hypnosis is "focused attention in the absence of critical thinking". Watching a good movie is an example of hypnosis many of us enjoy regularly. Hypnosis can be a good method of purposefully training yourself to fall into thought patterns that are good for you instead of thought patterns that are bad for you. Hypnosis can be particularly powerful when combined with biofeedback, where the hypnosis is used to train you how to respond well to the biofeedback. Change the sound of your sleep environment. What you dream about while you are asleep can have a strong influence on the amount of tooth grinding you do in your sleep. Many people find that they can influence their dreams by changing the sounds in their sleep environment, and many find that more peaceful or pleasant dreams reduce teeth grinding activity. One way of doing this is to buy a soothing sound machine (available at stores such as Brookstone or The Sharper Image). These electronic gadgets have digitally recorded sound tracks of sounds such as ocean surf, rain, wind chimes, etc.
Another way to change the sound environment you sleep in is to use a stereo or portable player and play CDs with soothing sound tracks, or sound tracks that you think will bring you good dreams. What one person finds relaxing or inspiring may not be relaxing or inspiring for someone else, so when choosing your sound track, trust your own instincts.
Get a massage. If you are like many people, how well you treat yourself will show up in how much you grind your teeth. Getting a massage regularly or even occasionally makes a big difference in the amount of tooth grinding that some people do. If you want to actually measure how much of a difference this or any of the other top ten ways to reduce tooth grinding makes in the amount of tooth grinding you do, you can use the biofeedback headband discussed in part 1 of this article to measure your tooth grinding before and after. For instance, if you want to know how much difference a massage makes in your teeth grinding, you can wear the biofeedback headband in silent mode for a few nights before your massage, and for a few nights following your massage, and measure the difference in how much you grind your teeth before and after the massage.
So there you have it. A lot of the things you can do to reduce nighttime tooth grinding and clenching are things that will make your life more enjoyable to begin with. You might also want to check out StopGrinding.org, which is one of the best non-profit resource websites on the web listing ways that people have found relief from tooth grinding, bruxism & TMJ. I wish you success and enjoyment in your tooth-grinding-reducing experiments.
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