How Stress Can Affect Your Oral Health
We’ve discussed many issues that pertain to you and your oral health. There are tons of things that can lead up to poor dental hygiene and oral health, but we’ve got some things that might just surprise you. While stress affects everyone differently, the one thing it doesn’t change is the way it affects your oral health. You see, when people are under stress, they’re prone to habits that can reflect in their oral health which can lead to other issues that will have you visiting your dentist.
How Stress Affects Your Oral Health
Just like with just about anything in life, when people are under stress they find different ways to cope with it. In some cases, it reflects directly on your dental health which can cause you other issues. Unfortunately, some people who experience a lot of stress will resort to teeth grinding. While there are people who naturally do this in their sleep, they’re some who grind their teeth as a way to deal with the amount of stress they may be dealing with. Not only does it make for an awful sound to listen to, there are a lot of issues that can occur with your oral health as a direct result. Other issues that may arise as a result of stress are cancer sores which may appear anywhere in or around the mouth area. For the most part, scientists haven’t been able to draw a direct link between them and the cause, but there are things that can be done to prevent them or lessen the frequency in which you experience them.
For whatever reason, while you can get a canker sore as a result of being sick with a virus they can also appear due to stress. While they’re typically found on the mouth, they can also be found on other parts of the face. Unfortunately, they’re highly contagious which means it’s pretty simple to pass on to someone else. In the event of having a canker sore, you want to make sure you’re taking an over the counter medication in order to treat them. Finally, for someone who is under a lot of stress, they can often find themselves skipping out on things they enjoy or just not having the energy or desire to do what they used to before. New parents are especially notorious for this with the birth of a new child as they often forget to take proper care of themselves while focusing on their newborn. Likewise, a stressed person may just not feel in the mood to brush one day, or partake in their usual hygiene routine and thus skip it. With continuous stress they’ll find that they’ve kept making reasons to skip out on taking care of their mouth which leads to dental health issues in the long run. If you find that you’re a person who is often stressed, then it’s important you talk to your dentist and family doctor on ways you can get past it and take care of yourself and oral health.
