What happens when you grind your teeth while you sleep?

Grinding your teeth is habit that is called bruxism and can cause many problems: from tooth abrasion to changes in the appearance of the person and even severe headaches. The pressure we put on our teeth when we grind them is 10 times higher than when we chew and if it is done repeatedly and for long periods of time it can cause permanent damage on our teeth and our appearance.

The bad thing is that we can grind our teeth for 40 minutes for every hour we sleep. If this happens every night we can cause damage to the jaw, headache, severe pain in the temporomandibular joint, but also hearing problems. The worst part is that we may not know if we are grinding our teeth, unless someone hears us do it or our dentist notices it.

Most likely we have all done it to some degree and its exact cause is not known. What we do know, however, is that some situations exacerbate the bruxism such as the intense stress of modern everyday life. In addition, poor dental work and poor occlusion of the upper and lower teeth can also make this bad habit worse. But we do not need to panic, because stress as we said, only makes things worse. As soon as we realize this, we should contact our dentist to assess the problem and correct the dental issues that may be causing it. The dentist will then make a special splint that we should wear at night. The splint will not only protect our teeth from abrasion, but can also help with joint and muscle pain as well as the headaches caused by bruxing. And definitely relaxation and stress reduction always have a positive impact.