Do you have an anxiety problem which is affecting your life? Do you overreact to everything or have pain attacks for no reason? Do you wake up in the middle of the night in a state of panic, in a cold sweat and with your heart racing out of control? Many people with panic disorders can be treated either conservatively with therapy of stress control and relaxation methods, but many people end up being placed on an anti-anxiety medications.
Any time I see patients in my practice with anxiety disorders, in almost every case, the person prefers not to sleep on his or her back. The reasons for this is that due to certain anatomic factors, if the person lays flat on his or her back, then due to gravity, the tongue falls back partially. If they have smaller than normal jaws, or any degree of dental crowding, the tongue falls back even further. Everything is fine until they go into deep sleep, when all the muscles (including the throat and tongue muscles) relax, and the tongue falls back and obstructs breathing.
At this point, one of three things can happen:
1. You can wake up immediately to light sleep or completely awake, wondering why they are suddenly awake,
2. You can stop breathing for 1-9 seconds and then wake up to light sleep or completely awake, choking, coughing or gasping for air, with your heart pounding, or
3. You can stop breathing for more than 10 to 40 seconds, and then wake up go back to sleep.
Depending on how sensitive your nervous system is, you will either wake up quickly every time you obstruct, or wake up after long breathing pauses. A pause for more than 10 seconds is called an apnea. More than 5-10 apneas every hour means you may have obstructive sleep apnea.
To compensate for breathing problems, most people with anxiety like to sleep on their sides or stomach, but whenever they roll onto their backs, this is when they are most likely to obstruct and wake up. Imagine if you kept waking up from deep to light sleep 5-10 times every hour. Think how you would feel during the day. Your nervous system, emotions and senses will be heightened, and you'll overreact to every little thing. Plus you'll be always tired, no matter how long you sleep.
So the next time you go to sleep, think about your sleep position, and which position you tend to wake up most often. If you developed a habit of sleeping on your back for whatever reason (your grandmother told you it was healthy, or your dermatologist told you to do so to reduce facial wrinkles), go back to sleeping on your back or side, or whichever is more comfortable.
What She Doesnt Know
Over one million Americans wake up each morning in significant pain from nighttime teeth grinding and clenching (bruxism). Does the fact that these people remain in pain every day mean they all don't have dentists? No, actually most of these people have dentists. Unfortunately, while most dentists are expert at preventing tooth damage and repairing damaged teeth, they are taught little or nothing in dental school about the psychology of habits, and most long-term tooth grinding and clenching is a habit most people would very much like to kick.
So what does it take to kick the habit of tooth grinding and clenching? As you might suspect from thinking about other habits (such as smoking, over-eating, drinking, or nail biting), the answer is different for different people. The "solution" that most dentists currently recommend is a custom-made mouth guard.
The custom mouth guards that dentists recommend come in many varieties, most costing between $500 and $800. There is strong disagreement between dentists on which is the "best" type of mouth guard to use. Some are made by vacuum-molding a hot thin sheet of plastic over a plaster replica of your upper teeth. Some cast acrylic, made in a mold made from an impression of both your upper and lower teeth.
Lots of people take their dentist's recommendation and plunk down between $500 and $800 for a custom-made mouth guard. Once you have paid for yours, you get to find out if you are someone whose nighttime clenching gets worse or better when you wear a mouth guard.
"Wait a minute" you might say, "did you say my clenching could get worse?" It certainly could. You see, the problem is that while mouth guards obviously protect your teeth, they don't necessarily make you bite less. The nature of the tooth grinding and clenching habit for some people is that a mouth guard is more of an annoyance to be chewed through than a signal to relax.
Most mouth guards are made to sit between your upper and lower molars, and spread the load if you clench your teeth, the idea being that even if you keep clenching, the mouth guard will help you do less damage. Sometimes this may work. Sometimes the damage done becomes much worse with a mouth guard.
Some brands of mouth guards (for instance the "NTI") are made to snap on to your front teeth and keep your molars from touching when you bite. The theory here is that such a front-teeth mouth guard will feel so different when you bite on it that your mind will know (even subconsciously) that something is not right when you bite, so you will not bite down hard. There are cases where that seems to work. Unfortunately, for the cases where it does not work, biting down on a front-tooth-only guard such as the NTI can cause serious damage.
Fortunately, there are a lot more possible ways to interrupt a habit than just sticking a mouth guard in your mouth. Some of them are free to try, some are moderately expensive to try, and some are very expensive to try. Some have money-back guarantees, and some do not. Various methods that people have successfully used to kick the teeth grinding and clenching habit include: biofeedback, hypnosis, changing sleep surface, changing pillow, soothing sound machines, chiropractic work, massage, diet changes, meditation, and other positive psychology practices.
A custom-made mouth guard from a dentist is one of the most expensive possible solutions you can try for teeth grinding and clenching. Not only that, but custom mouth guards come with no money-back guarantee. This may be a good deal for your dentist, but it's probably not a great deal for you. If you want to try a mouth guard, you might first want to try an over-the-counter inexpensive one from a pharmacy.
Both Steven Park & Andrew Trenton Weil are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Steven Park has sinced written about articles on various topics from Wellness, Cure Anxiety and Wellness. If you've tried all this and still don't sleep too well, before you resort to medications, take a look at my free report called Tired of Being Tired? at
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