What Your Teeth Can Tell You About Your Sleep Quality
Teeth are for more than just chewing and smiling. As it turns out, they can also reveal a number of different potential health ailments, from minor to major in nature. In fact, many teeth-related clues have a significant bearing on a seemingly unrelated aspect of life — the ability to get a good night’s sleep. That’s because there are a lot of potential disturbances going on in the jaw and mouth region when a person is nighty-night, and when such events occur it can make your sleep quality horrible. Anecdotal evidence aside, there are some pretty compelling reasons for a person to get the best possible sleep that aren’t just about feeling well-rested.
Signs Indicating Teeth Grinding
Teeth can take a lot of action, but it’s supposed to be limited to the foods we eat. Unfortunately, a lot of people grind their teeth (both while awake and at night), and that can cause damage. Teeth grinding, known clinically as bruxism, is often stress-induced. However, it can also be caused by poorly aligned teeth or an unhealthy lifestyle. It is intricately related to poor sleep quality, as well as a host of other problems. The teeth themselves often show signs of worn enamel, or of being flattened, broken, or even knocked loose. If a dentist spies any of these physical characteristics, it’s likely that your poor sleep quality is related to this phenomenon. Additional symptoms that teeth grinding is the culprit of sleep woes are the presence of jaw pain, dull headache, damage to the inside of the mouth (as though you’re chewing on the cheeks or scraping the roof), ear pain that has nothing to do with infection, airway restriction, and more. Even more troubling than all of this discomfort, however, is that teeth grinding can cause sleep apnea and vice versa.