Today, I’d like to address a question someone has about their dentist telling them to reduce stress. The patient was wondering how they can possibly reduce stress when stress is a part of life. With that understanding, it may seem challenging to stop stress-induced bruxism or chronic teeth grinding. So, how can you truly stop being stressed? Is it even possible? The reality is, you can’t completely eliminate stress.

Stress is an Indicator

Let’s be honest: stress will always exist. It’s a reminder that something isn’t going well. For instance, consider financial stress. Imagine you need to pay your bills by the end of the week, but you don’t have enough money. Naturally, this situation causes financial stress because you depend on those payments to cover your basic needs like shelter or food.

Or during election season, with opposing sides discussing everything, there’s inevitably some stress or uncertainty in the air. Now, if you grind your teeth and are told it’s stress-induced, you might think, “I can’t stop because stress is just a normal part of life.”

It’s true; you can’t eliminate stress completely. However, there’s another aspect of stress that isn’t often discussed.

Types of Stress

There are two types of stress: normal stress stemming from everyday life experiences, and individuals cope with this stress in various ways. They address the stressor directly; for instance, if it’s financial stress, they may take steps to manage it, such as taking out a loan. People have diverse coping mechanisms—some may have a drink, others may call a friend, while some may turn to prayer. Everyone handles stress uniquely.

For you, teeth clenching may be your response. What happens is, with that level of stress, you’ll notice that during normal stress, you won’t excessively grind your teeth. You might grind them for 3 or 4 seconds and then stop. It won’t have significant negative effects on your life because you’re addressing the stress—you’re stressed, yes, but you’re taking steps to resolve the problem and move on.

Is it Really About Eliminating Stress?

So, it’s not about eliminating stress altogether; it’s about recognizing that there’s another type of stress driving this habit to become unconscious or causing many of our habits to become unconscious. This is the memory of past stressors we’ve encountered but never fully dealt with.

Let’s revisit the example of finances. Imagine you successfully clear your finances, overcoming financial stress by managing to pay your bills through various means. Initially, you may feel a sense of relief, thinking you’ve resolved the issue.

However, especially if you lack emotional mastery and have been in similar situations for a prolonged period, you might find yourself carrying this stress into the following month. Even though you’ve handled the immediate cause of the stress, you’re still harbouring the memories and emotional residues associated with it because you haven’t made peace with these past stressors.

Unresolved Stress = Your Body Being in Constant Stress

Continuing to carry these unresolved stresses means that your body and mind remain in a constant state of tension, even after the immediate stressor has been addressed. Now, consider the cumulative effect of 20 or 30 years of accumulated, unprocessed stress. Your body continues to endure persistent stress and anxiety. This ongoing internal tension often manifests unconsciously, such as through teeth clenching, as the unresolved stress remains deeply embedded or stored in the subconscious mind.

I hope that makes sense. The stress you’re not fully processing ends up being stored in your mind. To ease this tension, your mind picks something like teeth grinding, which you’ve adopted as a stress response or have been using. That’s why it becomes chronic—because the stress persists, so does the coping mechanism. If the stress is processed, the coping mechanism will diminish in frequency or may cease altogether.

Compare To Alcohol Addiction

I think the best analogy is looking at someone addicted to alcohol. They started drinking to relieve stress, but as more stresses piled up, so did the bottles. The mind became accustomed to using alcohol as a way to cope with stress, unable to consider other alternatives. Similarly, with teeth grinding, the mind has become accustomed to stress triggering teeth grinding—it’s just activating what’s already there.

That’s why when you’re told to stop stress, it’s not really about eliminating stress altogether; it’s about understanding the types of stress you’re experiencing. If a normal stressful event, like not having enough money to pay bills next week, leads you to grind your teeth excessively, it means the event itself isn’t causing stress—it’s triggering past stress. And that past stress is what you need to work on. Once you address this past stress, you’re telling your mind, ‘Hey, I’m making peace with the memories of past stress. Now I want to handle normal daily stress as it comes.’ That’s essentially what healing involves.

Impact of Processing Past Stress

Once you’ve addressed past stress, two outcomes are possible. Firstly, your chronic teeth grinding may cease entirely. Secondly, you may continue to grind your teeth, but with reduced frequency or in a milder form, because you’re now capable of consciously addressing and managing the stress. The more aware you become of your teeth grinding and actively attend to it, the greater the likelihood of stopping it. Ignoring it over time allows it to become unconscious, occurring without your conscious awareness.

So, when you’re advised to alleviate stress and find it challenging, it’s crucial to seek help to explore the nature of the stress you’re presently facing. Is it triggering unresolved past stress, or is it something different altogether?

Additionally, I’d like to emphasize that in my experience working with clients who struggled with significant stress and chronic teeth grinding, once we addressed their past stressors, they continued to grind their teeth but with less frequency. Over time, their minds began to relearn that excessive teeth grinding wasn’t necessary.

It’s similar to people who struggle with drinking. Sometimes, when they address underlying issues, they discover that excessive drinking wasn’t the core problem—it was what led to the addiction. Similarly, with teeth grinding, you may come to realize that the grinding itself isn’t the fundamental issue; rather, it’s what facilitated its chronic development. I hope that explanation clarifies things.

Feel free to share your experiences with stress. Remember, stress may never completely go away, but making peace with past stressors enables you to manage current challenges more effectively.

Note from the Author

If you’re ready and you’d like my help with overcoming chronic teeth grinding and clenching habits for Improved Oral Health and Reduced Stress, then you can book a FREE BREAKTHROUGH CALL with me HERE. Happy healing 💙💙. Feel free to share and comment! Use this information with caution, it comes from my own thoughts & bias, experiences and research😊. Disclaimer: I am not a Dentist, but a therapist specializing in offering support and guidance in addressing the psychological factors contributing to bruxism.