stop grinding my teeth

i’m changing the name of this entry to “relax my jaw” because i’ve gotten better about the actual tooth grinding, but i find that my jaw is almost always clenched. i’m rather tired of this bad habit, and i’d like to kick it completely.

This has to be up there with one of the worst habits I have, period. It started in my sleep somewhere around 7-8 years ago, at least I think. If I did it as a child I wasn’t aware of it and my mom had me at the dentist regularly so I think he would have said something if I did. Anyways, it’s now a bad habit that has carried over into my every day life and it’s pissing me off. I’m so unaware of it, I’m often finding myself having to stop, think, then physically move my jaw because it’s been clenched tight for who knows how long. I know it has everything to do with some sort of nervous habit, but I’m afraid of ruining my teeth! Sometimes I even try breathing through my mouth to offset the habit, but then I usually just forget and go back to breathing through my nose again. Maybe I need to wear a rubber band around my wrist to snap to get me to shake the habit, but then I’d just be picking up a nervous rubber band snapping habit? haha… seems hard to win. Either way, I really need to stop grinding my teeth.