Quite the dramatic headline, no? This is going to be a long discussion of dental and orthodontic health, but I think the subject matter won't be quite as dull as it sounds. Let me start with some background.
I've never had braces. My teeth aren't perfect, but they've never caused me much problem either. I've never had a cavity. The only mouth troubles I have are sensitive teeth and receding gums, the bulk of which happened in my early 20s and haven't worsened.
But I come from a long line of teeth grinders. You can hear my dad grinding in his sleep from down the hall. This is not an exaggeration. My sister grinds. But me? I'm a clencher. I lock my teeth down and create a vacuum in there, especially when under stress.
So, in line with my yoga and mindfulness studies, I set out to fix myself of this little problem. Yoga teaches a technique to help relax the mouth that involves creating a space between the teeth and lips, and then putting the tip of your tongue right behind the front top teeth. The mouth is a common place that we hold tension, especially when we think we're relaxed.
And lo and behold! It worked. For a while. At some point during those years, I began chewing only on one side. I'm not sure why, but I did. I always attributed it to the sensitivity, but now I'm not so sure.Then I had my darling daughter 3 1/2 years ago and I couldn't maintain the mindfulness required to keep up my non-clenching. Amidst the slosh of hormones and lack of sleep, the clenching came back full throttle. My jaw was exhausted and I was beginning to show some signs of Temperomandibular Joint (TMJ) Disorder. So I went to the dentist.
And they gave me an ultra-sexy mouth guard. You know, one of those delicious acrylic-y things that are custom-molded to fit your mouth. Oh yeah. Between that and my fish oil balm for my face, my husband found me irresistible!
But then something funny happened. I just clenched on top of that thing. It didn't help at all. But I believed it was preventing damage to my teeth from the clenching, so I kept wearing it. And for some reason that I couldn't pin down, eating just got more difficult and more uncomfortable. I chewed on one side and it just felt like my teeth weren't lining up properly.
And then I attended 2012′s Ancestral Health Symposium. I'll admit it, I wasn't expecting much from a talk titled "Craniofacial Dystrophy—Modern Melting Faces", but what the heck? And this is a good example of how attending an event like this can completely change your life. It's worth the 25 minutes of your time, I promise.
TEETH TOGETHER. LIPS TOGETHER. TONGUE ON THE ROOF OF YOUR MOUTH. Could it really be so simple? I quit wearing my mouth guard that very night and I've never looked back. "Teeth together. Lips together. Tongue on the roof of the mouth," has become my mantra. I do this while driving, while typing, and even while sleeping, where I hook my jaw over the edge of my foam ergonomic pillow to keep my mouth together.
At first, it was difficult to get my teeth to even want to connect with each other. But with diligence and practice, they started to become reacquainted with each other. My jaw, on the right side, still pops from a ligament or some sort of connective tissue that isn't used to the new arrangement yet, but it doesn't hurt, and during the times I'm especially good about my exercises it happens less. So I suspect that someday it will be less of an issue or disappear completely.
http://paleoperiodical.com/2013/03/18...
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