How to stop grinding your teeth and what it really sounds like

Bruxism, also known as teeth grinding, affects 10 per cent of the population. Here we explore where it comes from and how to tackle it

A tender jaw, worn-down teeth and mysterious headaches can all be telltale signs of bruxism (teeth grinding), an issue that affects around one in 10 of us in the UK as we sleep.
But many people don’t realise that they’re doing it, until their dentist brings it up at a routine appointment, or their long-suffering bed partner points out the increasingly unpleasant noises emanating from the adjacent pillow (for audio to prove the point, see below).
Here’s why you could be grinding your teeth at night, and how to stop or reduce the damage to your teeth.
Bruxism, or teeth grinding, takes a few different forms. One is where “you grind your upper and lower teeth together,” says Dr Aditi Desai, a sleep dentist and president of the British Society of Dental Sleep Medicine.
“There is also clenching,” where your teeth are stationary and fixed together in your jaw, “which has different causes, one of which is stress, and can happen in the daytime or at night,” she says.
Clenching and grinding can also have genetic causes. Some sleep disorders such as obstructive sleep apnoea, periodic limb movement or gastric reflux can also cause jaw muscle activity and lead to sleep bruxism, according to Dr Desai.
Teeth grinding in particular “is clenching but also moving teeth left, right, forwards and backwards”, says Dr Tom Crawford-Clarke, the founder of Luceo dental.
Chronic or regular bruxism most commonly affects people aged 25 to 44, but many more of us occasionally clench or grind our teeth.
The most common cause of teeth grinding is, unsurprisingly, stress, says Dr Crawford-Clarke.
“Most of the patients I see are young professionals working in central London with pretty stressful jobs,” he says.
Other sleep disorders like sleep apnoea – where breathing stops and starts whilst sleeping – can also cause bruxism “because this can happen when the body is trying to open your airways”, Dr Desai says.
Medication can also trigger it. Some modern SSRI antidepressants cause bruxism (mostly teeth-clenching) in around a quarter of people who take them. “But I would never advise that people stop taking antidepressants because they are grinding their teeth,” Dr Desai says.
“Instead it’s much better to look at how you can manage the symptoms and reduce the grinding.”
In some cases, bruxism cannot be totally prevented, but there are many ways to protect your teeth from damage and lower the amount of grinding you’re doing throughout the day and at night.
All the classic relaxation techniques can help your cause. “Anything that helps to take the mind away from stress is bound to help limit the damage done by bruxism,” says Dr Desai. “Meditation and deep breathing before bed, and doing yoga in the daytime, are all things that can help promote relaxation.”
Maintaining good “sleep hygiene” – a solid night-time routine that encourages good quality rest – can also help limit your grinding at night in particular.
“Try to have less distraction before bed, so avoid doing your emails from home before you sleep or staying up late watching videos on your phone, to reduce stress,” Dr Crawford-Clarke says.
From coffee and tea, to nicotine, most of us are consuming different types of stimulants every day.
“The caffeine in coffee and tea can make you grind and clench more,” says Dr Crawford-Clarke. Meanwhile “the nicotine involved in smoking might make you a bit more agitated” and increase the likelihood that you grind your teeth.
Medications like SSRIs meanwhile can “trigger” bruxism in the first place, Dr Desai says, and both drinking and smoking can exacerbate the problem.
Cutting down on drinking and smoking can reduce your teeth grinding, as can “reducing your caffeine intake or avoiding it after midday”, Dr Desai adds.
A mouth guard that covers your teeth can prevent them from damage caused by night-time grinding – but only if you choose the right one.
Instead of rushing to buy a mouth guard online, get one fitted by a specialist, and do this after speaking to a dentist who specialises in sleep too, “to rule out any underlying sleep disorder”, says Dr Crawford-Clarke.
“Mouth guards can be extremely helpful because they protect your teeth from grinding, but the ones you buy online or mould yourself, like a sports guard, are very basic and probably will not fit properly,” he says.
“If you’re having jaw pain and headaches then you might find that a mouth guard like this actually makes you grind more, so even if your teeth are protected, your other symptoms might actually worsen.”
What’s more, “if you have a bite guard that doesn’t cover all of your teeth, this can actually cause them to move”.
A mouth guard “can stabilise the jaw and prevent damage to the teeth and the jaw muscles”, Dr Desai says, but if you have sleep apnoea or another condition “then a simple mouthguard could make your sleep disorder worse”, or even cause one to come on.
While it’s often sleep bruxism that’s doing the most damage, mindless clenching throughout the day can cause you to reinforce that behaviour and grind more at night.
“Starting to think about clenching in the daytime is the first thing I tell all my patients to do,” Dr Crawford-Clarke says. “Most people do it when their mind is on something else and particularly when they’re stressed. So having a visual cue, like a post-it note on your desktop while you’re at work, reminding you not to clench, can really help.”
If you grind your teeth, chewing gum is best avoided, and “it’s generally not good to have on a regular basis”, Dr Desai says. “It damages the joint in your jaw, and it becomes a habit.” There is also some evidence that habitual chewing in the day can cause your jaw to move more at night.
It’s particularly important to give up chewing gum if you’re a long-time grinder “as the enamel on your teeth will have worn down, so repeated chewing could lead to more damage”, Dr Crawford-Clake adds. “Your teeth are only meant to come together for 15 to 30 minutes a day, while you eat. Chewing gum only adds more to this and causes the potential for issues.”
As a more invasive fix, botox injections to the muscle at the back of your jaw have been very helpful for some of Dr Desai’s patients. “I suggest it when patients have really systematic bruxing, and are experiencing a lot of discomfort, with their chewing muscles really overdeveloped,” she says. “Botox can relieve these symptoms.”
Dr Crawford-Clarke also recommends this treatment. “I’m seeing people get botox for bruxism more frequently. It reduces the amount that the muscles in the jaw can fire, which limits damage to your teeth as you can no longer clench or grind so intensely.”
Bruxism can be tricky to stop, especially because you might not be able to track how often you’re grinding at night. But there are ways to manage the symptoms that come with habitual teeth grinding.
“Some people who grind their teeth see an osteopath to have their muscles relaxed, or massage their own jaw muscles,” Dr Crawford-Clarke says. “This can go a long way in managing the pain that can come with teeth grinding over time.”
If you’re experiencing jaw pain in the mornings after grinding your teeth at night, there are simple self-massages to relieve some pain with plenty of videos online.
Magnesium is an essential mineral, and having plenty of it in our diets, some experts argue, is key to long and restful sleep. If you’re struggling to get enough of it, taking magnesium supplements might help to promote better sleep and prevent grinding in the night. Although “go to a doctor and get a blood test to see if this is an area you can improve in first”, Dr Crawford-Clarke says.
Dr Desai does not believe that there is any proven link between magnesium deficiency and bruxism, but “magnesium supplements can be very helpful in the context of muscle relaxation and stress reduction”.
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