Does the Stress of City Life Make You Grind Your Teeth?

Helping Birmingham patients with tooth damage caused by bruxism.

Although living in a major city has a great many advantages; good public transport, shops and entertainment on your doorstep; it can also bring with it a lot of stress and strains as we battle our way to work daily, encountering what seems like an ever increasing amount of traffic and other obstacles that just seem to get in our way.

Add to the above, a stressful day at work and it is perhaps not surprising that some of us arrive back home with our teeth tightly clenched together through stress.

Of course, once we have started to relax at home, this tension soon lifts and our jaws relax once more. However, this is not the end of the story.

Night Time Bruxism

Although a degree of stress is inevitable during the day as we rise to our challenges, it is at night time when much of the tooth damage caused by teeth grinding (bruxism) is done. Whilst we can certainly damage our teeth by daytime grinding if done too forcefully, the majority of damage is done whilst we are asleep, often grinding our teeth together for lengthy periods of time.

Whilst, in many cases bruxism is a result of a stressful life, this is not always the case and can simply be a habit, albeit one that we are unaware of, as we sleep.

With around one in ten people in the UK suffering from bruxism, it should not be a surprise that there is a lot of damage done to our teeth during our sleeping hours.

Dental Damage

Whilst bruxism can cause restless nights, both for the sufferer and their partners, it is damage to the teeth that we, at Arthur House Dental Care are especially concerned with.

In the worst cases of bruxism, the damage can be quite dramatic if the teeth grinding is done forcefully. When this happens, it is not unusual for a tooth to simply shatter.

In most cases though, the damage is done by a gradual wearing away of the enamel of the teeth which exposes them to an increased risk of dental decay, and consequently a number of dental fillings.

For cases where teeth actually break, it may not be possible to fill them and a dental crown may be used instead to rebuild the tooth to its former function.

Solutions to Teeth Grinding

Whilst much teeth grinding is a result of stress, and dealing with the root of this problem may be the best long term solution; for those whose teeth grinding is current and significant, a dental splint is an effective solution. We are able to fit these for any bruxism sufferers from Birmingham to help them get a good night sleep.

The dental splints work whilst we sleep by relaxing the jaw muscles which, in turn, prevents the teeth from grinding together. This method should ensure that there is no damage caused by grinding of the teeth and that both yourself and your partner get a restful night’s sleep.

For more information about teeth grinding and dental splints, please call our Birmingham dental practice on 0121 323 4492.