How to Manage ADHD-Related Teeth Grinding

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a condition experienced by over 15 million people globally. If you’re one of those millions, you expect symptoms like impulsivity and difficulty focusing, but bruxism is a new one.

Yet, here you are, grinding your teeth and clenching your jaw whenever you’re anxious, stressed, or sleeping.

What can you do to stop this annoying — and sometimes painful — behavior?

Tips to Manage ADHD Teeth Grinding

Adjusting your daily habits to your ADHD needs is understandable, but shouldn’t you get a break when you’re asleep? Well, not necessarily.

Statistically, people with ADHD are more likely to develop bruxism, a condition that causes them to grind their teeth and clench their jaw unconsciously.

The risk factors vary, but some of the most common causes of ADHD-related teeth grinding include:

• Stress
• Impulsivity
• Sleep disorders
• Stimulants or other medications

With this condition, the brain can over- or under-react to stimuli. When you’re not stimulated enough, your restless brain can send messages to the body to fidget, laugh, or, in some cases, grind and clench.

Bruxism movements can happen when you’re awake or asleep. However, when you’re alert, it’s easier to notice and stop the behaviors before they cause too much damage to your teeth, gums, and facial muscles.

With a little extra awareness and a few tips, you can reduce the grinding and control those messages from your brain before they become unhelpful grinding movements.

Stress Reduction

You’ve heard of the benefits of mindfulness and meditation for bruxism, but when your brain seems to be going a million miles a minute, how can you slow down enough to shut it off?

The human truth is that the brain and body need time to relax and recoup from the adrenal hormones that run us ragged the rest of the day. Too much adrenaline can have negative health consequences, like lowered immune systems, high blood pressure, and increased heart rate, not to mention teeth grinding. So, finding a way to calm your mind a little each day is essential.

Meditation is possible, even with an ADHD brain. In a nutshell: get comfortable, practice slow, steady breathing, and use an app or relaxing music to distract yourself from thinking.

If meditation isn’t your thing, try journaling, artwork, dance, or other creative ways to soothe your stress hormones.

Movement

With ADHD, your brain craves stimulation, so it shouldn’t be too hard to find ways to get moving. This activity should be strategic, though, if you want it to reduce your teeth grinding symptoms.

Some activities that release adrenaline and other hormones in your body while increasing dopamine and serotonin include:

• Yoga
• Aerobic exercise
• 10-15 minute (or longer) walks in nature

However, any activity will work if you do it for long enough, so pull out your dancing shoes and play that funky music, strap on your roller blades, or do whatever energetic hobby gets you excited and moving!

As a bonus, you’ll be so tired by bedtime that you’ll sleep like a baby.

Night Guards

Night guards aren’t magic wands that stop you from grinding your teeth, but they can seem like it after you consistently wear the right one. These small oral appliances slide over the upper or lower arch of your teeth, preventing the enamel from making contact when you grind.

Because there’s no traction, your jaw muscles kind of “give up” and are forced to relax, letting your brain go into a shutdown mode that helps you get more restful sleep.

A word of caution here, though.

You can easily find boil-and-bite and one-size-fits-most night guards sold over-the-counter at your local drugstore. These aren’t designed to be comfortable or durable, so you may find it even harder to sleep with a bulky OTC guard (as cheap and tempting as it may be).

Stick with the high-quality custom night guards designed by professionals like us at JS Dental Lab. More affordable than your dentist’s office version, we’ll find you the perfect night guard to help you get a great night’s sleep — every night.

Professional Care

Is your grinding too intense to handle on your own? You’re in luck.

There are plenty of professional care options that can help you balance ADHD and teeth grinding.

Medication Adjustments (Under Doctor Supervision)

For one thing, it could be your ADHD medications causing your bruxism. There’s a real thing called Adderall jaw clenching, a term given to the stretching and damage done to the jaw because of meds like Adderall. Talk to your healthcare provider about possibly changing your prescription from an SSRI to something that could reduce your grinding.

Learn More: How to Protect Your Mouth from Adderall Jaw Clenching

Biofeedback

If it isn’t coming from your medication, biofeedback might help. This technique is an alternative form of therapy that teaches you how your body and brain are working in the moment.

As you learn how your muscles are tensing up or your heart rate is racing, you can begin consciously controlling them. Neurofeedback, a form of biofeedback, specifically trains brainwave activity, increasing beta waves for focus and attention and decreasing theta waves for inactivity.

Acupuncture

Looking for something alternative, but without the intensity of biofeedback?

Acupuncture is a promising treatment. Through the placement of fine needles, the acupuncturist creates a plan that helps reduce hyperactivity and inattention, while increasing positive behaviors.

Botox

Botox is often recommended for teeth-grinding patients, but if you’re on an ADHD medication, talk to your physician about this possible treatment first. These medications can reduce the effectiveness of Botox. Other muscle relaxants may be helpful instead.

Dietary Changes

When you’re trying to control ADHD symptoms, diet and nutrition is a non-negotiable.

Yes, it’s important for everyone, but in an ADHD-wired brain, the ingredients you eat can turn into a vicious cycle of self-regulation.

Because the dopamine reward center is activated by food (among other things), your level of impulse control can be determined by what you eat.

Low levels of dopamine, as mentioned earlier, trigger the ADHD symptoms, demanding a release/distraction. Food becomes this dopamine and serotonin release, so you might think you’re craving that donut, when in reality, you could get the same boost from a walk outside or a run on the treadmill.

But for most of us, the donut sounds more appealing. That’s where control comes into play. If you don’t have unhealthy food nearby, you can’t eat it.

This relationship might sound simple to the average person. Yet, an ADHD brain doesn’t quite work as easily as that. ADHD often comes with a decreased glucose metabolism, so you process sugar uniquely.

When there isn’t enough glucose in the body, you lose energy, and your brain demands you eat carbs and sugar (think: pizza, pasta, cake, and caffeine). These foods then create an environment in your body that interferes with your sleep quality and adds digestive issues that keep you up and grinding your teeth at night.

While you beat yourself up for caving into these cravings, the reality is that it’s a side effect of ADHD. Finding other ways to get a dopamine hit and increase your glucose can do double duty — your brain is stimulated naturally, and your body can sleep restfully.

Why ADHD Causes Teeth Grinding

Managing the symptoms of teeth grinding behaviors is one thing, but understanding why they happen in the first place can clear up a lot of confusion.

The fact is that people with ADHD are often more at risk of bruxism. Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder causes dysregulated arousal and regulatory systems in the brain. These systems are supposed to regulate stress responses and muscle movement, but with ADHD, they don’t work this way. Instead, a person with this condition has increased difficulty with impulse control and hyperactivity.

Teeth grinding happens when your brain doesn’t “shut off.” Your stress hormones are on overload, and your brain is looking for a way to get rid of the extra energy. As a result, your sleep is restless.

Awake, this restlessness is released as fidgeting or twitching. Asleep, it shows up as teeth clenching and grinding. It’s no wonder that many people with ADHD also have sleep problems like insomnia or restless leg syndrome.

If you’re taking an SSRI or other stimulant medication, check the list of side effects. Many of these meds are associated with bruxism, so if you’re trying to treat your grinding and wondering why it isn’t working, it could be medication-related.

Keep Reading: Managing the Side Effects of SSRI Teeth Grinding

Understanding the Risks of Untreated Teeth Grinding

Maybe you’re on the fence about whether or not it’s even a big deal to worry about your teeth grinding habits. After all, there’s enough to deal with just trying to balance how your brain works when you’re awake!

We get it. But … if you don’t take care of those early warning signs of bruxing, the results could be catastrophic to your health.

What’s the big deal about a little jaw clenching and teeth grinding? Left untreated, those small actions create compounded problems.

Here, we’ll summarize a few of the most impactful side effects of bruxism.

Oral Health Damage

The obvious damage to your oral health is done to the teeth's enamel. When you’re repeatedly grinding the upper and lower teeth together, the result is erosion and abrasion.

Think about the long-term effects of rubbing sandpaper over a piece of wood, or using a nail file on your fingernail. With enough time and force, the item being sanded gets smaller and smaller.

When this happens to your enamel, the force and pressure can lead to things like:

• Gum disease
• Cracked or broken teeth
• Tooth infection

While the grinding is causing tooth damage, the clenching of your jaw is overworking those muscles, leading to jaw pain and headaches.

And that tiny temporomandibular joint tasked with opening, closing, and moving your mouth? It’s called your TMJ, and it can’t withstand long-term grinding and clenching. Eventually, you’ll likely develop a painful temporomandibular joint disorder (TMD).

Sleep Disturbances

Sleep disorders are common among bruxers and individuals with ADHD, and you get to have both.

Bruxism itself is a sleep-related movement disorder. However, it’s also linked to sleep disorders like obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) and other breathing conditions. OSA causes apneas, or pauses in breathing.

It can become life-threatening, so it’s urgent to talk to your doctor for treatment options if you think you may have this condition.

Medical Conditions Stemming From Bruxism

Still not convinced? Continued research studies show that a prevalence of serious long-term health conditions can stem from bruxism.

Parkinson’s disease, dementia, type 2 diabetes, gastroesophageal reflux disorder (GERD), and cardiovascular diseases are all connected with teeth grinding.

With a higher risk of developing these potential problems on the horizon — all from something that could be mitigated with a simple night guard — why wait to treat your bruxism symptoms?

Mental Health Disorders

Self-esteem issues and anxiety disorders seem far removed from bruxism, but they’re strongly associated with this condition.

While stress can cause teeth grinding, the inverse connection happens, too. When you aren’t sleeping, you’re in chronic pain, and your teeth are cracking and chipping; these issues impact you psychologically.

Stress management techniques can help, while more serious mental health concerns may need the guidance of a professional therapist for counseling and, if necessary, antidepressants.

Taking the First Step: Choosing the Right Night Guard

There’s a reason why so many dental and medical professionals suggest a night guard as the first course of treatment for bruxers. They work, and they’re easy to obtain and use.

Choosing the right night guard for your needs comes down to three factors:

• Convenience
• Quality
• Affordability

If you focus on finding the cheapest, you’ll want the over-the-counter night guards sold at your local pharmacy. However, they’re bulky, uncomfortable, and not designed to be durable.

Quality might lead you straight to your dentist’s office, but the price tag will have you debating whether you really need that night guard.

Instead of sacrificing one for the other, though, there’s a middle ground. Search for online professional laboratories that make custom night guards, like us at JS Dental Lab. You’ll get the high-quality materials of a dentist’s office at an affordable price, along with the bonus of not having to leave your house beyond your mailbox.

Visit our website and let us help you decide if you need a hard night guard, a soft version, or the popular hybrid option. Within a short time, you could be feeling the results of wearing a comfortable night guard:

• Better sleep
• Decreased jaw pain
• Fewer ADHD-related teeth grinding side effects

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Conclusion

Sleep bruxism is part of life for millions of people, but when you’re an adolescent or adult with ADHD, it can push you over the limit of things you want to put up with.

There are ways to treat teeth grinding at home or with the help of your doctor, but one of the most surefire (and easiest) steps is to invest in a custom-fit night guard.

Shop our night guards at JS Dental Lab and make wearing one part of your daily dental health routine. Your teeth and jaw muscles will thank you!