stop clenching my jaw

I’ve clenching my jaws forever. I have a mouth guard but when i wake up in the morning, its nowhere to be found. I also suffer from constant headaches. I do my best to catch myself but by then, my jaws are already hurting or exhausted; and the headache is already pounding. I think I only catch myself doing it 3 out of 50 times. I’m willing to try anything at this point.

I’m better about doing this during the day. If I start, I pretty much always catch myself, and usually I am pretty good now about keeping my jaw relaxed.

But I know I still clench my jaw when I sleep. I bought a bite guard at the drug store, but I really don’t like wearing it. I don’t know what I’m so stressed about to make me do this.

I’m so sufeering from this. My life is different than before, I feel like live in the dark side of the moon.

Because of this I’m the victim of almost non-stop tension headaches. Need to stop. End of story.

so, do you all get really bad headaches too? i do, all the time, like everyday. i have been doing deep tissue massage, cranial sacral therapy, release techniques that my nd taught me, taking calcium and magnesium and doing a restorative stretching type of yoga and this has all helped with the pain (headeaches, constantly aching jaw and mouth and teeth and neck and face and shoulder)

Why oh why everytime I’m doing something that requires more thought and focus I feel the need to bite down as hard as I can. I know I have TMJ, but I haven’t found anything good about solving it. I’m going in for a night guard soon. I just don’t see how that is going to help me during the day. I’ve been trying to be more aware but that doesn’t seem to be working either.

i used to have a hard time with clenching my teeth at night and any time i was stressed or in a bad mood. i went through this phase where i got really big into hypnosis and decided to try to fix my problem. at night i’d lay in my bed and get as completely relaxed as possible and clear my mind and simply tell myself that i would not clench my teeth anymore. a few nights of giving yourself that suggestion can keep you from clenching your teeth for months. its easy and the relaxation feels really good. dont throw hypnosis out the window just because it sounds crazy because it really can help if done correctly

For almost a year I’ve known I clench my teeth when I sleep. I would wake up with a sore jaw all of the time and it would pop constantly. I asked my dentist about it and he was completely unhelpful. All he told me to do was stop drinking caffeine after lunch time. I’m a full-time college student so I knew that wasn’t happening. I asked him about getting a mouth guard and he told me that they were expensive and no one ever wears them anyway so he didn’t want to make one for me… Thanks a lot.

Then I started noticing that I clench during the day too. Usually when I’m studying and stressed. It was getting to the point where my jaw was sore constantly and I would be worn out from chewing my food. A couple of weeks ago I went out and bought a night guard (basically like a huge sports mouth piece) from the store for $20. I just had to put it into hot water for a few seconds and it molded perfectly to my teeth.

I wear it every night and it’s definitely helping a lot. If I do clench, it at least takes some of the pressure off of my teeth. My jaw feels much better plus I’ve noticed that during the day it feels natural to keep my teeth separated, like it should, rather than before when I only felt normal if they were touching. I’m glad I finally decided to do something about it myself since my dentist didn’t want to do his job and help me.

Well finally glad to see some others that have this. Today I went to the dentist because my TMJ is drving me nuts. He told me that the joint is wore out on the right side. I am clenching my teeth together and half the time dont even no it. Caught my self doing it this morning. My jaw feels like a tried to chew wood . He said i need to relax, hot compresses and i tried muscle relaxers cause its going into my temple. life would be so much easier if there were noooo stress. kat

O forgot to mention that good exercise is to put 2 fingers on bottom teeth and push your jaw upwards.

i’ll post this here so as not to have it emailed to 50 people, you know?

doing yoga for the last 5 days, my upper torso has started to release. where i found tensions inhibiting my upper shoulders, now i find tensions specifically in my throat and rear upper neck. i mean, the lower tensions are still there, but at least now i can feel the higher tensions. i can feel that my throat is constricted. all the time. which is new in a sense.