How Poor Sleeping Habits Affect Your Oral Health
Sleep well and protect your teeth by avoiding these bad habits
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Today, we’re going to look at how poor sleeping habits can affect our oral health. There is a saying, “Sleep is the best medicine.” Have you heard that expression before? It basically means that sleep plays a huge role in protecting our health. Do you get enough sleep? Do you even know how much you’re supposed to get? In today’s busy life, it can be hard to prioritize sleep — there’s too much to get done! However, today, we will learn about the effects poor sleeping habits can have on our oral health. It just might change your mind.
Bad Habits Affecting Your Oral Health
Experts recommend 7–8 hours of sleep for adults. If you don’t sleep properly, you’ll be drowsy the next day at work. This can disrupt your daily life and result in a poor quality of life. Not only does poor sleep affect our daily life, but it also affects our oral health. Today, we will learn about how bad sleeping habits can negatively affect our oral health.
Top 3 Worst Sleeping Habits for Oral Health
1. Not Getting Enough Sleep
Getting enough sleep is very helpful for preventing cavities. People who slept for the recommended number of hours had the lowest incidence of cavities in a study. In fact, those who slept for less than 5 hours a night had a 31% higher incidence of cavities than those who slept 7–8 hours. This is because a lack of sleep makes the mouth dry, which makes it easier for cavities to form.
Sleep also strengthens our immune system. This is why people recommend taking medicine and resting as much as possible when we catch a cold or other diseases. Sleep is the best way for our body to rest and recharge. A lack of sleep weakens our immune system and results in our body being unable to protect itself from external viruses. Therefore, we can be easily exposed to various inflammatory diseases, such as oral inflammation and severe gum infection (periodontitis), dental diseases that can cause extreme pain.
2. Mouth Breathing
Mouth breathing is looked down on in society. People feel that it makes you look unintelligent and usually bothers those around you. However, it does more than just lower your standing in society. Mouth breathing actually lowers your quality of sleep and causes tooth damage. It makes your mouth dry and creates an environment where germs thrive and easily multiply. Dry mouth can cause bad breath, cavities, periodontitis, etc. It can even lead to your breathing suddenly stopping and starting while you sleep (sleep apnea). If you continually breathe through your mouth while sleeping, your teeth are more likely to be worse than the average person's.
3. Teeth Grinding (Bruxism)
Grinding your teeth also adversely affects your teeth. Unconsciously grinding your teeth while sleeping puts two to six times the pressure on your teeth than grinding your teeth consciously. This can cause your natural teeth to crack or break easily. It can cause expensive dental prostheses such as implants to be damaged as well. In addition to damaging teeth or nerves, teeth grinding can also cause headaches, overuse of jaw muscles, tension, and temporomandibular joint dysfunction (TMJ).
Bedtime Habits that will Improve Your Oral Health
Experts say you should stay away from caffeinated drinks such as black tea or coffee before going to bed. It’s also a good idea to refrain from intense exercise two hours before going to bed. When it’s time for bed, take a lukewarm shower and fall asleep immediately without using electronic devices such as TVs or smartphones.
We hope these tips will be helpful for you! If you are struggling to fall asleep or get a good night’s sleep, it might be worth visiting a sleep clinic to determine your issues. Thankfully, there are lots of experts who can give you advice on how to improve the quality of your sleep. Thanks for tuning in, see you next time!
