5 habits that hurt your jaw and provoke jaw pain
Temporomandibular joint pain, widely known as jaw pain involves a painful aching sensation in the jaw joints. It is the most common musculoskeletal pain that has high prevalence rates (about 12% globally) as well. The point where the jaw is connected to the temporal bones of the skull is called the temporomandibular joint which controls the jaw movements including opening & closing mouth, etc.
Various attributes like genes, chronic illness are powerful to compromise the joint and muscles around it thereby a few people develop sharp pain radiating on the jaw bone. Besides these, a combination of certain habits that seem harmless also annoys your jaw joint. By breaking those habits, you can refrain from debilitating jaw pain. Keep reading to perceive such triggering elements.
1) Sleep Deprivation
You might know that jaw clenching aggravates discomfort on the jaw bone. Such unconscious jaw clenching begins from stress, depression for which not getting enough sleep is also a reason. It is well-known that chronic sleep deprivation is linked to many emotional effects.
On the other hand, doctors found that lack of sleep is powerful to increase inflammation in joints, cause tension in muscles inside the body. Jaw bone joints and muscles around them are not an exception.
2) Aggressive Chewing
Doctors believe that chewing foods aggressively is a manifestation of innate aggression. This practice will exert more strain on the muscles around the jaw. Similarly, this habit mandates the overuse of jaw joints and muscles. It also pressurizes your jaw followed by sharp pain instigated with the jaw bone movements.
3) Chewing on only one side
Similar to chewing foods aggressively, chewing eatables on one side of your jaw also exerts pressure on that side. Hence this habit also stimulates pain in the jaw joint. To prevent this, try to chew foods equally on both sides.
4) Bad posture
Having a bad posture while standing, sitting, or even lying in a bed causes structural problems in the body. It is because such poor postures exert unnecessary strain on the neck, shoulder, and other muscles around them. It puts tension on the jaw, causing sharp pain.
Some bad postures that lead to TMJ pain include sleeping on your stomach, resting your hand under the chin.
5) Chewing inedible things
Chewing hard objects like pen caps, pencils, ice cubes (to combat the heat in summers) also put excess strain on the jaw bone as well as damage the teeth. Apart from people who are doing such atypical activities with teeth, people who are taking chewy & hard foods regularly also get jaw pain. It is because the extensive pressure they exert on jaw bone will cause misalignment in the upper and lower jaw bone, affecting the surrounding muscles and ligaments.
It means everyone should take balanced nutrition with food items that are ease on our jaw. Meanwhile, don’t use your teeth for activities like opening bottle caps, tearing tapes, and other activities that are harmful to your teeth.
Bottom line
When the jawbones are subjected to unnatural movements, they have to encounter unnecessary strain which is reflected as pain in the jaw joints. Various poor oral habits compromise your jaw bone health as well as the teeth. For instance, Researchers found that fingernail biters are more prone to bruxism and teeth clenching. Breaking such bad oral habits ensures you a healthy jaw bone and prevents TMJ pain.
