How Stress Can Impact Your Oral Health

Stress and Teeth Grinding

When you’re stressed, you’re more likely to clench your teeth — especially at night — or slide them back and forth over each other. Also called Bruxism, teeth grinding is a serious condition that shouldn’t be ignored. It can cause serious, chronic conditions if not treated.

Some of the symptoms of teeth grinding include:

• Sleep disorders
• Headaches
• Jaw pain
• Abnormal tooth wear
• Broken or chipped teeth
• TMJ disorder
• Changes in the appearance of your face

The offices of Gole Dental can make you a custom bite guard that you can wear when you sleep to help treat your symptoms and protect you from the damages of teeth grinding.

Stress and Canker Sores

Canker sores are small ulcers that appear in the mouth and often make eating and talking uncomfortable. While their exact cause has yet to be determined, what is known is that they appear more often during times of high stress and anxiety.

According to researchers at the Mayo Clinic, these are also possible causes:

• Minor mouth injuries
• Brushing too hard
• Sports accidents
• Accidental cheek bites
• Oral health products that contain sodium lauryl sulfate
• Sensitivity to certain foods (such as chocolate, strawberries, coffee, cheese,
• nuts, eggs, and/or spicy and acidic foods)
• A deficiency in vitamin B-12, zinc, folate (folic acid) or iron
• Allergic responses to certain mouth bacteria
• Hormonal shifts
• Emotional stress

Stress and Gum Disease

Researchers at Tufts University have found that when the body is experiencing stress, its ability to manufacture immune cells to protect against bacteria is compromised. This means your immune system is compromised, allowing bacteria to thrive and inflammation to increase.

The Academy of General Dentistry backs this up, saying “Stress affects the immune system, which fights against the bacteria that causes periodontal disease, making a person more prone to gum infection.”

Stress and TMJ Disorder

Temporomandibular Joint Disorder (TMJ) can cause pain in your jaw joint and in the muscles that control jaw movement. During times of stress, the overuse of jaw muscles and cause you to clench or grind your teeth–as was talked about earlier.

Symptoms of TMJ include:

• Tenderness or pain in your jaw
• Pain in one or both of the temporomandibular joints
• Aching pain in and around your ear
• Difficulty chewing or pain while chewing
• Aching facial pain
• Locking of the joint, making it difficult to open or close your mouth

Stress and Oral Hygiene Neglect

When you’re stressed, self-care practices can often go to the wayside. Often sleep is compromised, which means there’s less energy necessary to complete even simple tasks like brushing and flossing.

In addition, nutritional choices are often compromised in times of stress, and we often crave more sugary foods. Unfortunately, those foods can wreak havoc on your oral health, especially if you’re not engaging in proper oral hygiene.