End this uncomfortable habit for good
A surprising large number of people suffer from unconsciously grinding their teeth at night, usually, but not always, when they are sleeping. Not only is this obviously an uncomfortable habit but it can also lead to deterioration of the teeth over time.
What do you do to get me to stop grinding my teeth?
The process of stopping this activity involves light or deep relaxation (hypnosis), to re-pattern the behaviour unconsciously. Sometimes, there are other issues to deal with, such as anxiety or tension, and our strategy for dealing with these problems can be seen by clicking here.
Stress Anxiety And Bruxism
Anxiety and stress are considered by many to be major factors in teeth grinding although this isn't necessarily the case. We have seen clients who were otherwise pretty relaxed who still ground their teeth at night.
The Anticipation Of Grinding Your Teeth
There is one common factor that is true of virtually all people who suffer from the problems of bruxism. That is, they anticipate the problem. In other words they worry about it, expect to do it, or think about it in advance. What seems to be is huge help is programming the mind, in advance, to imagine having a good night's sleep with a relaxed jaw. It may not seem important to you, but the major difference in thinking between someone who has bruxism and someone that doesn't is that the former expects, anticipates, worries, or knows its going to happen, the latter doesn't think about it.
Bruxism And The Vagas Nerve
A few years ago Richard Bandler (the guy who invented much of the field of NLP - Neuro-Linguistic Programming) mentioned that he believed there was a connection between the vagas nerve and tension in the neck and jaw. The vagas nerve runs up through the body. He said (as far as I can remember)that he found that when he got people to thoroughly relax their abdomen, especially around the solar plexus, that the tension in the jaw was eliminated. Since hearing this I have always worked with clients to help to 'program' them to have a more relaxed abdomen as they go to sleep. It really does seem to make a big difference.
How long will it take to stop my teeth grinding problem?
Where we can help with this issue we can do so within one to two sessions.
