How Stress Affects Your Oral Health

Stress is one of our common concerns in life. Here in the Philippines, most people are stressed by work or traffic with today’s complex and hectic world. Coping with stress might take a toll on your body. Stress can come from either work, school, family and friends. Stress could affect not just your physical and mental health but it could also affect your oral health. Physical stress includes migraines and indigestion, mental stress can cause anxiety, but did you know that stress could affect your oral health as well? Here are some factors where stress may lead to the following oral health problems:

Poor Diet

Lack of vitamins and minerals that could help strengthen your teeth and gums can increase tooth decay. Stress would usually lead us to do comfort eating for us to cope with it. Comfort foods such as chips, hard nuts can cause our teeth to chip while sweets such as candies and chocolates can increase tooth decay.

Mouth Sores

Cold sore and canker sores can be caused by stress as well, typically by emotional stress. These mouth sores can be triggered by foods with high acidic content such as tomatoes, citrus fruits and chili. They can also be treated by over-the-counter medication but if it gets repetitive and worst, it’s time to visit your dentist for proper mouth care. It takes 10-14 days for mouth sores to heal.

Unhealthy Habits

There are some unhealthy habits that people do to cope with stress such as drinking and smoking, the most common ones. Drinking too much alcohol or liquor can stain your teeth while smoking can affect the gums since it affects the flow to oxygen is the bloodstream so if you have cold sores, it would take a while for them to heal. These unhealthy habits can affect your immunity, can cause gum disease and tooth decay.

Poor Oral Hygiene

One of the most common factor that affects many of us. Because of our busy and stressful lives that affects our schedule, we have less or no time to floss or brush which could increase gum disease. You must brush your teeth at least three times a day after breakfast, lunch and before going to bed to prevent the bacteria build up in our mouths.

Gum Disease and Infections

Infections tend to increase if a person is under stress and it as well affects the body’s immunity to function and heal gum diseases as stress lowers the immune system which makes a person more prone to gum infection.

Dry mouth

Lack of moisture can make our tongue, teeth and gums sensitive as saliva maintains stable pH levels inside someone’s mouth. It is also known to was away residual food particles and bacteria that can cause tooth decay. Some people who are prone to stress that take medications for it tend to have a dry mouth than others.

Bruxism

People who are feeling stress and anxious are prone to Bruxism. It is the action of grinding your teeth while you are asleep, because of this, it could result permanent damage to your teeth since you grind and clench your teeth that could seriously chip down enamel. It makes your teeth sore and even your jaw muscles which will make it hard for you to bite chew or even open and close your mouth. If it continuously happens, some doctors might give mouth guards to prevent your teeth while grinding before going to sleep, but there are modern approaches on how to solve this.

Missing your dental appointments

For better oral health care, you must have regular appointments with your doctor. Missing appointments for oral examination, scaling and cleaning with a dentist could cause greater risk of gingivitis, periodontal infection and cavities.   Oral health is as important as our physical and mental health. Taking good care of your mouth and gums is a worthy goal. With proper dental hygiene and regular appointments to your doctor, it ca help you prevent bad breath, gum disease and tooth decay. Seek professional help if coping with stress is being hard for you already. For your oral healthcare needs, our dental clinic is open to help you solve your oral health problems. You can visit our branch in Manila, at BGC Fort Santiago and at Lingayen and Calasiao, Pangasinan. For more information, send us a message or give us a call today!