Grinding Teeth After Quitting Nail Biting

One of the side effects of nail biting can be bruxism which is also known as grinding your teeth. Grinding teeth can lead to a number of side effects including damage to both the tooth and root, jaw pain, headaches and movement of teeth. It also has a negative effect on orthodontic treatment if you have braces.

But what if you’re a long time nail biter and are in the process of quitting or recently quit? You’re used to chomping down on your nails and your jaw is used to biting down and clenching your teeth even when you’re not eating. What happens when you suddenly quit and your jaw doesn’t get that satisfaction of biting down during the day or whenever you normally bite your nails? One side effect can be grinding your teeth.

Recently I quit nail biting and am about one month into quitting completely. I’ve been biting and picking my nails for decades, for as long as I can remember. While I’m more of a nail picker than biter, I am very used to biting nails having perfected this habit over many, many years. So I’m used to biting down on something hard that doesn’t involve food. And my jaw is, too.

Teeth Grinding As A Substitute

I have noticed over the past few weeks that when I first stopped biting my nails completely, I woke up with a headache. One of those I think I was grinding my teeth overnight headaches where you just get a feeling that you were grinding down with your jaw. It’s different from other headaches and for me usually clears up with one to two aspirin.

I have also found myself bearing down on my jaw in the middle of the day when occupied with something. Again, just an observation that I’ve caught myself clenching my jaw for some reason. It might be a coincidence but I’m not used to grinding my teeth during the day.

Is grinding your teeth something that we subconsciously do in lieu of biting our nails?

Bruxism Research

As mentioned, bruxism is the unintentional grinding or gnashing of teeth. Bruxism is divided into two types: Awake Bruxism which you may experience during the day when awake and Sleep Bruxism which is experienced at night when sleeping. Research shows that jaw pain is likely to be suffered more frequently by those who experience sleep bruxism.

Biting our nails and other bad habits like chewing on pencils, on ice cubes and things of that nature conditions our jaw to tighten and results in us clenching our teeth. Over time, we may start to subconsciously clench our teeth when we aren’t biting our nails as a result of us getting used to experiencing this clenching and biting sensation. We effectively train ourselves to do this when biting our nails over a long period of time.

So even if we quit nail biting, our jaw is still conditioned to this chomping and chewing action so it stands to reason that quitting that too may go hand in hand with quitting nail biting.

Alternatives

What can we do to prevent ourselves from biting our nails and grinding our teeth once we’ve stopped nail biting? To start with we can try activities that mimic chewing activity to provide a substitute for the nail biting such as:

• Chewing sugar free gum.
• Sucking on mints or other hard candy. As with gum, look for sugar free products.
• Eating sunflower seeds or other healthy food that has a crunch to it.
• Eating apples, raw carrots and other crunchy fruits or vegetables.
• Keeping yourself busy with a fidget spinner, stress ball, Silly Putty or similar.
• Trying an activity that is known to relax our body such as yoga or meditation or a stress releaser like going to the gym, boxing, MMA or martial arts.
• Seeking professional help from a therapist or even hypnotist.

I’ve also tried drinking more hot herbal teas. I find that constantly sipping on peppermint, apple, or chamomile teas keep my mouth busy. It may help to relax your jaw and get you to focus on things other than grinding your teeth.