The Benefits of Wearing a Night Mouth Guard: A Comprehensive Guide

The Benefits of Wearing a Night Mouth Guard: A Comprehensive Guide : If your search for a solution to your morning headaches and jaw pain led you to consider a night mouth guard, you’re on the right track! These oral health accessories are designed to help prevent the symptoms caused by teeth grinding and jaw clenching, but they do so much more.

Many people confuse night guards with retainers because they look similar. However, a retainer’s main purpose is to prevent your teeth from shifting out of place after orthodontic treatment like braces or Invisalign. Night guards keep your teeth from grinding while you’re sleeping and causing enamel and muscle damage.

The official term for this unconscious behavior is bruxism, and it’s extremely common. Since one of the dominant causes of grinding is stress, this condition has been rising since COVID, with 5-8% of adults dealing with chronic bruxism.

The good news is that most of these symptoms can be relieved or prevented with a night guard. This short guide takes a comprehensive look at the benefits of this oral appliance and why you should be wearing one nightly.

  1. Your Teeth Are Safe From Grinding

    You’ve seen how erosion works in nature, as acid rain or waves constantly hitting rocks wear them down over time. This same idea is what is happening to your teeth gradually while you’re grinding.

    You don’t notice a difference at first, but slowly, that teeth grinding wears away at your enamel. Eventually, this erosion makes your teeth fragile enough to crack or chip and causes damage to preexisting dental work.

    Wearing a night guard prevents the upper and lower teeth from touching, effectively stopping the dangerous erosion process.

  2. Your Pain Disappears

    When you clench your jaw in your sleep, it doesn’t just affect those muscles. Your jaw muscles are connected to your temporomandibular joint (TMJ) and your neck and facial muscles. As they get overworked, they swell and tighten, which causes pain in those areas.

    This overload on your system is why bruxers often wake up with headaches and have earaches, jaw pain, and neck issues throughout the day. Wearing the night guard gives those muscles a rest. With time, you’ll notice fewer headaches and less overall discomfort.

  3. You Get Better Sleep

    Are you sleeping all night, but you still feel exhausted the next day? Chances are, it’s your bruxism causing that restless sleep feeling.

    Even if you’re sleeping a solid eight hours, that sleep isn’t restful. The clenching and grinding cause pain, which your brain recognizes.

    Instead of using those deep sleep cycles to repair the day’s damage, your brain is dealing with trying to fix the bruxism damage. And since much of that behavior is caused by an overload of stress hormones like cortisol, it’s also attempting to release those excess chemicals.

    While your brain is focused on the actions going on under the surface, it keeps you from getting quality slumber, which shows up as a feeling of constant fatigue and lack of energy.

    With a night guard, you get to enjoy normal sleep cycles. Your brain can turn its focus to its regular job of repairing and renewing cells, healing muscle damage and providing sound sleep to refuel your energy levels. You’ll wake up feeling refreshed, and it’s all due to the addition of a simple, well-designed night guard to your evening routine.

  4. Your Snoring May Stop

    Is your partner or someone else in the household complaining about your loud snoring keeping them awake? Snoring is a common side effect of bruxism. It happens because when you clench your teeth, your airway narrows. You struggle to breathe normally, which leads to snoring.

    Wearing a night guard keeps your top and bottom jaws from touching. Because they’re separated, your airway remains open, and you can breathe easier.

    However, if you’ve been diagnosed with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) or other conditions that cause snoring, talk to your medical provider before trying a night guard.

    OSA and bruxism are frequently linked together, and a night guard can reduce the symptoms. But if you have severe OSA, your doctor may have other oral appliances specifically designed for more dangerous conditions.

Conclusion

Wearing a night mouth guard reduces damage to your teeth, but its benefits can spread to your overall health. When you’re sleeping better, and your body isn’t in constant pain, you’re able to enjoy life better. Consistently using a night guard may be the solution you’ve been looking for to reduce all your bruxing symptoms.

 

 

 

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The Benefits of Wearing a Night Mouth Guard: A Comprehensive Guide

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