The Link Between Stress and TMD
The brain and body answer to every demand or to threat by means of stress. Simple daily tasks like employment and education as well as significant life changes or tragic occurrences can be rather frustrating. The main truth is that stress compromises your health and can do so in ways that might not always be clear-cut.
Because the symptoms of stress affect your physical body, which can sometimes result in a TMJ diagnosis, stress and TMJ are frequently associated with one another. Although everyone is aware that stress can affect daily attitude and behavior, there are more major effects of continuous stress than one could possibly imagine.
Stress influences not only hormone generation but also the respiratory and cardiovascular systems of your body. For example, the main stress hormone your body releases is cortisol, which has been connected to health risks like high blood pressure and other physical/autoimmune reactions. Our bodies’ systems are intricately linked to one another, hence the whole suffers when one component suffers.
Increased anxiety and depression might lead to unnoticed changes in your body’s reaction to specific stresses or triggers. For individuals, the physical symptoms of TMJ Disorder include headaches, teeth grinding, and jaw clenching—all common expressions of stress.
Extreme stress can lead to unconscious teeth clenching or grinding and jaw muscular tightening. The same nerve that sets off our fight reaction when under stress stimulates the muscles of the jaw, causing an overactive nerve. Over time, that causes a tension in your jaw muscle whereby the joints move out of position and apply aberrant pressure on the TMJ joint. Stress is the only thing driving this.
Myofascial pain problem is the early phases of discomfort linked with temporomandibular joint disease (TMJ). Both are stress-related and exhibit jaw stiffness, muscle soreness and pain. Treatments can cause the jaw to migrate and throw off the disc alignment in your TMJ joint.
Stay proactive about your medical condition
One of the main ways you may either avoid aggravating your current TMJ condition or reduce your stress is via management of it. Three strategies help you to control the demands of your life:
Know The Symptoms:
Which events in your life bring about stress?
Understand their effects on you and their reasons.
Is it work? Is it a person? Is the effort of the stress worth?
Should it not be worth it, consider: is this something I could eliminate from my life?
Do it if you can. Care for yourself.
Ignoring your own needs can make it difficult to control the demands. Keep up a good lifestyle: work out, eat sensible meals, and get enough nighttime sleep.
Ask for Assistance
You shouldn’t feel as though you have to manage difficult life events alone. To help you bear the weight, consult experts such counselors, religious leaders, or a close friend. You shouldn’t believe you have to do this by yourself.
What should one do going forward?
See the experts for a brief consultation if you believe stress has either developed a TMJ condition or aggravated your current condition. Get TMJ pain free to reclaim yourself.
