Stress affects many people across the country, and it can impact your oral health as well as your mental health. While treating dental issues won't remove the stress itself, it's still well worth talking to your dentist so they can check for signs of damage and offer treatment options that can help prevent stress from harming your oral health. This can keep your teeth and gums protected while you seek treatment for stress.

As such, it's important to understand just how stress can affect your oral health. Here are just four common issues.

1. Clenching 

People who frequently experience high levels of stress often physically transmit that stress to their bodies. Stress increases the risk of excessive muscle tension, particularly in your jaw, so people with stress often keep their jaws clenched for extended periods. This places additional strain on your teeth, making cracks and fractures more likely. Additionally, chronic clenching can result in temporomandibular (TMJ) disorders. Common TMJ warning signs include headaches, jaw pain and difficulty opening your mouth fully.

2. Grinding

Grinding is a related condition to clenching, so patients suffering from one will often suffer from the other. Grinding your teeth is a common reaction to stress, and it often happens while you sleep. As well as increasing the risk of fractures and placing additional pressure on your jaw, persistent grinding can wear away tooth enamel over time. Once tooth enamel is lost, it cannot be regrown, and that can mean having to put up with everything from acute sensitivity to an increased risk of decay.

3. Dry Mouth

Most people don't understand how important saliva is for their oral health, but it performs a vital role by washing away residual food particles, controlling bacteria and preventing plaque hardening into tartar. Unfortunately, stress and anxiety are both linked to dry mouth, which means your mouth will not benefit from an adequate supply of saliva. If you frequently feel your mouth becoming uncomfortably dry, stress could be causing dry mouth.

4. Gum Disease

When your body is healthy, immune cells work to protect against bacteria and infection. However, chronic stress can inhibit your body's ability to produce enough immune cells, which means that infections grow more likely. Gum disease is a common result since bacteria in your mouth can quickly impact your gums when the immune system is compromised. Common signs include tender gums that take on a red tinge and often bleed under pressure.

Learn more about this side of dentistry. 

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