RODALE NEWS, EMMAUS, PA—Learning how to handle stress could protect your teeth from nighttime grinding. Such is the implication from a recent study published in the journal Head & Face Medicine, which finds that tooth grinding is more common among people who have unhealthy stress-coping mechanisms.
THE DETAILS: The researchers recruited 69 patients, 48 of whom suffered from the disorder known as sleep bruxism, otherwise known as tooth grinding. Subjects completed surveys that assessed both stress levels as well as coping strategies for dealing with their stress. Not surprisingly, the researchers found that people who ground their teeth at night tended to experience more stress at work and in their daily lives. More surprising is that how the tooth grinders coped with their stress was a big factor as well. The association between stress and tooth grinding was measurably stronger for those who coped with stress in a less-constructive way, through avoidance, escape, rumination (dwelling on a problem), and self-blame, than it was among those who handled stress positively by, for example, knowing how to control a stressful situation or leaning on a social network for support.
WHAT IT MEANS: Learning healthy stress-coping mechanisms is good for your head and your body. "When you're under stress, your body's taking a beating," says Robert Smith, PhD, a performance psychologist based in Waltham, Massachusetts. The trick, he says, is to learn how be more aware of the tension in your body, and find simple ways to handle your problems more effectively.
Keep reading to learn healthy stress-coping mechanisms.
Here are some strategies that can help:
• Learn to listen to your body. Smith is a fan of using mindfulness meditation, muscle-relaxation techniques (for instance, tensing then relaxing each muscle group in your body), and yoga to get people to first realize where the tension in their bodies is building up. "Sometimes you're not even aware of where the tension is," he says. "If you do yoga and other mediation practices, you're training yourself to become more aware of the tension in your body."
• Stop the self-blame game. It's bad enough that blame can be contagious, but always blaming yourself for problems can lead to worsened stress, says Smith. The idea that "I'm never good enough" and fear of disapproval are very common in stressed-out people, he says, which just sets you up for low self-esteem and high burnout. Instead, try focusing your attention on how you've been able to successfully overcome similar challenges in the past, he says. "Many times if you hadn't had that experience, you wouldn't have learned something valuable to use later on." Besides, he adds, no one likes perfect people. "Think about the people you’ve known who think they're perfect. Nobody wants to be around them—they're annoying."
• Wonder, don't ruminate. When you ruminate on a problem, you just get caught up in thinking about a problem over and over again, "because it's a threat and it's hard to convince yourself that it's OK and that everything's going to be fine," says Smith. Again, he says, try to remind yourself how you've been able to overcome similar problems before. But also, "tuning into the wonderment" of a problem, rather than dwelling on how you handled it, puts you into problem-solving mode rather than judgmental mode. In judgmental mode, says Smith, problem solving stops. "You have to say to yourself, 'You know, that was really fascinating. What can I learn from it?' Wonderment mode allows you to think of solutions. Otherwise, you're just punishing yourself."
• Face problems head-on. Avoidance and escape were the two stress-coping mechanisms most strongly associated with tooth grinding in the study. Sometimes avoidance is called for, says Smith, like when you try to steer clear of an overbearing or obnoxious coworker. But if you’re constantly avoiding problems, they’ll come back to haunt you eventually, and they’ll be worse. "Develop some assertiveness skills," he says, "and talk things out." If you're the nonconfrontational type, start off with a compliment for your coworker before calmly explaining why he or she is bothering you or causing stress, suggests the American Psychological Association. And be careful about words such as "never" and "always." Generalizations such as "you always do this the wrong way" are normally inaccurate and tend to put people on the defensive.
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