Yes,

The night Guard/Mouth Guard helps to stop me from sliding and grating as much as it is a mold especially made to immobilize my teeth...(like a tooth jail).

I also had a bilateral clicking (TMJ from the Bruxing) not so much now, or at least I don't notice it.

And.... (just to add to this sexy post) I have one Guard for upper and one for bottom although now i can just use the top one and am ok.

The dentist will make you one if you ask nicely.

Nadia.

Nadia,

Interesting that you feel it actually stops you from bruxing, as the research I've read shows that it does that temporarily, but eventually the bruxer goes back to the habit, and ends up destroying the guard, which has to be replaced. At least the teeth are protected, but supposedly it doesn't stop the habit.

You can be glad that you are extraordinary, Nadia!

Now my report from last night: It was somewhat of a negotiation between the "I like it" part of me and the "I want it to stop" part of me (at least they are beginning to dialogue!). Big thank yous to a good friend who helped me last night to discover that both parts share the same intention, just expressing it in different ways. And here's what I discovered both parts are seeking:

Relief and comfort.

Think that sounds crazy? Think about it.

If you have ever experienced a compulsive behavior, you know that there is a certain relief and comfort that comes (albeit momentarily) from giving in to the compulsion. For instance, at a point in my past, I have eaten sometimes in a compulsive manner, so I understand well the feeling that comes from, for instance, thinking about eating something, and then going there. I have a new understanding that this is what happens with the bruxing...there is a part of my mind that receives comfort, and a feeling of relief from this habitual pattern. That part doesn't think about the pain I recieve in the morning after doing it all night! In fact, I think that part is quite dissociated from the part of me that feels the pain that is the result of the action.

So, I think I am well on my way to eliminating this behavior, or at least greatly reducing it, as the parts show evidence of communicating. And, taping the stress ball to my hand is a good idea, as it gives the "I like it" part a habit to try out that is not harmful (I did use it last night). I am also giving myself permission to try out different non-harmful habits that can satisfy the need for comfort that the "I like it" part has.

And, I wrote about it a little here. Feel free to read if you like!

Be well, and at peace,

Phil

Good morning!

Back to square one...again. Things did not go so well last night.

So, if anyone has any bright ideas, I'm ready to sink my teeth into them!

Phil

go to a dentist, have him/her pull all of your teeth. no teeth means no bruxing.
ok, enough having fun at your expense, if i think of something useful, i'll let you know.

This will be my last post on this thread.

Phil,
Don't get mad. Remember, there is no failure, only feedback. I know there is a solution to your problem, I just don't know what it is yet. But, you are my friend and I am determined to help you.

Hi Phil,

I'm coming into this thread rather late, and that's partly because I don't think online forums are the ideal place for one-to-one changework and coaching, due to the lack of rhythm, timing, and non-verbal feedback.

But since I too used to grind my teeth, and am now much improved, and since you sound like you've had an unpleasant time of it recently, I thought it might be helpful to give you my approach. So this is not an intervention, it's just a story, an offering, a suggestion .

I should say that I'm not 100% grind free, my girlfriend tells me I occasionally do it if I've overindulged in the drinking department, but apart from that, I sleep deeply and peacefully these days. Whereas three years ago I would wake up exhausted sometimes, these days I wake up feeling very rested.

The major way I did this was as follows:

Have you heard of lucid dreaming? No, I'm not suggesting you try to remain conscious all night(!) but I think this is a useful analogy.

If you haven't, lucid dreaming is the phenomenon of becoming conscious that you are dreaming, and even directing your dreams as you like. Many people try to induce lucid dreams via long hypnotic inductions before bed, and using complex gadgets that measure eye-movement, and they have varying degrees of success.

But in my experience, one of the simplest and most effective methods I came across was to build a habit during the day of: every time you check the time, ask yourself, "Am I dreaming?" and then check the time again.

Dream researchers have noticed that mechanical devices like clocks and light switches tend not to work in dreams (I can vouch for that in my own experiments too) - when you check the time twice in a dream, it is typically vastly different or your watch has changed or gone! So you build the habit of checking twice in your daily life, and that habit automatically transfers to your sleep time.

Now, some time ago, I bought a device called the Motivaider, which is a little pager-like device which vibrates at set intervals, and to be honest is rather pricey in so far as that's all it does. It's essentially a vibrating egg timer with an auto-reset!

But the principle behind it is extremely powerful. You connect whatever behavioural change you would like to make in yourself to the feeling of the vibration, and then every 20 minutes (for example) it reminds you to do it. For example to breathe deeply, to stand more erect, or to loosen your jaw muscles etc.

Since you're familiar with NLP, you can take this principle even further, and build a stacked anchor, connected to the vibration. I built a state of deep relaxation, centeredness, and a relaxed tongue and jaw. I added in something I got from Richard Bandler about reversing the flow of the energy in the jaw - if the tension feels like it's flowing in one direction in the joints, reverse it, spin the energy the opposite way, creating a reverse loop of comfort on either side of the jaw. And I also took three, slow, deep breaths.

If you connect all of this to a stimulus like a vibrating pager, and you drop into that relaxed state several times an hour, every day, breathing deeply, looping comfort through the jaw, it can't help but begin to transfer into your sleep time.

The key is the repeated external stimulus. If you don't want to buy a Motivaider, you can use the countdown timer on your mobile phone, and set the phone to vibrate mode. I know Michael Perez recommends his clients get a cheap digital watch that beeps every 15 minutes to create new habits in a similar way.

This is a highly effective method to build a new habit for yourself, one that naturally crosses over into your sleep, and it certainly worked for me.

Just a suggestion anyhow .

All the best,

Joe.

Oh, and one other thing I did...

joseph_kao wrote:

If you connect all of this to a stimulus like a vibrating pager, and you drop into that relaxed state several times an hour, every day, breathing deeply, looping comfort through the jaw, it can't help but begin to transfer into your sleep time.

You can help those resources transfer even more thoroughly into your sleep time by doing some vivid future pacing/mental rehearsal of being tucked up in bed, sleeping deeply and experiencing all those resources throughout the night.

You can add in the looping comfort in the joints of the jaw, and the deep relaxation in the tongue, neck and shoulders etc, as you do a mental run-through of the relaxing night ahead, your head on the pillow, the clock gently spinning round as the hours fly by, short periods of REM sleep when you dream, longer periods of deep, healing slow-wave sleep, and then rehearse yourself awakening refreshed and well rested.

I believe that building the relaxation habit during the day is the most important component to why this whole process works, but adding some regular mental rehearsal of how comfortabe and peaceful you want your sleep time to be just further tips the odds in your favour .

I know that I said I would not post on this thread any more, but why would I want to limit myself that way? So I changed my mind, in order to say...

THANK YOU, JOSEPH KAO!!!

Yesterday my MotivAider arrived, and I put it to work immediately. All I had to do was set the intent in my mind that I would relax my jaw and facial muscles every time it vibrated. Well, by last night, the most amazing thing happened. When it went off, even before I had time to make my muscles relax, they did it on their own, automatically! Cool, huh? Now every time it goes off, my muscles do not relax--I just notice that they are already relaxed.

I decided to wear it to bed last night. It did wake me up once or twice, but considering it goes off every 15 minutes, I think that's pretty good. I imagine that maybe tonight or by tomorrow at the latest I will not even wake up once! And the best thing...I didn't brux at all last night.

Coupling this with regular practice of Autogenics is solving the problem. The thing that I am keeping in mind as I choose treatments for this, is that bruxism, I believe, is rooted in the Parasympathetic Nervous System (rest and repose), and is basically the chewing motion "gone wrong." While anxiety or stress may aggrevate it, the root cause is not based in the Sympathetic Nervous System, so techniques which address the emotional issues around bruxing might improve it, but not eliminate it.

So, the lesson for me is this--when you are working to solve a problem, make sure to go down the right path to find the root cause.

I will keep you all posted as to how things go. I am also going to see a special massage therapist this weekend who supposedly can do some things very quickly to help.

Be well, and at peace,

Phil

Hi Phil,

It's nice to know that Joseph was able to help!

All the best Violeta

Going on two nights brux-free now...

(Phil does the happy dance)

I'm still planning on seeing a massage therapist tomorrow to help tip the odds in my favor even more!

Let's hear it for collective resourcefulness, for if it were not for Joseph's suggestion, this Strange Bird might still be scratching his head right now!

Phil

Well done Phil, sounds like you're doing a grand job - and of course the more you habitually relax the jaw the more it'll become a natural way of being for you.

Enjoy all the rest... of the even deeper comfort to come .

Joe

Joseph (and anyone else who reads),

I just saw the most amazing massage therapist, recommended by Rubin. He worked on parts of my head that I didn't think could be worked on!

I will let you all know the results soon...

Phil

pcadams wrote:

I just saw the most amazing massage therapist, recommended by Rubin. He worked on parts of my head that I didn't think could be worked on!

Cool. You have new parts of your head that you can now notice relaxing!

Well, the results were not great...yet.

After all of this, I bruxed again last night. Any thoughts on this?

Going to plan D now...

Phil

Hi Phil



I think your over subscribing to, too many- change systems/tools- in to close proximity- of time- Would you be willing to type out all your attempts and the things you have used- and roughly how many times you have used one thing or another- and the times frames and overlaps from one thing to another?

With truly the best intentions in mind

J

Hi Phil,

To echo Jay's comment - "Man who dig lots of shallow wells find less water than man who dig one deep well".

I don't know if there is a single foolproof solution to bruxism. However I do know that deliberately relaxing your tongue, jaw, neck and shoulders every 15-20 mins during the day tips the odds heavily in your favour. It certainly did for me, and it's a time-tested way to build new habits.

I also know that expanding the scope of how you judge if something is working for you is helpful. If you have been sleeping more comfortably overall this week than you were a month ago, then you're heading in the right direction. If you sometimes brux, but not as much as before, then you're heading in the right direction.

As for which well to dig deeply? Well I'd go for one that involves less introspection, fewer questions like: "Why?", "What's the positive intention?" and "Why do I enjoy it?" and "What could I substitute for it?", "What causes it?", "What other solutions are there?". I personally find that such an approach tends to send people into a loop of self-analysis and magnifies their focus on whatever their issue is. Self-analysis and over-thinking can be inherently stressful, which causes muscle tension... I think you see where I'm going.

The well that I would dig deeply is one of habitual relaxation, and giving yourself time to dig it thoroughly and deeply. To not succeed all at once, but to notice incremental improvements over the coming days and weeks, so that it becomes an instinctive habit for you over time.

Wishing you the best of luck ,

Joe

joseph_kao wrote:

To echo Jay's comment - "Man who dig lots of shallow wells find less water than man who dig one deep well".

That presumes of course that you are digging in the right place to begin with. I like the Japanese expression "it is not effort that is important, it is correct effort that is important". Here we tend to assume that more is better. This leads to frustration which doesn't help matters usually. It doesn't matter how badly you want to see the sun rise and how hard you try, you still have to look in the right place in the sky to enjoy the view.

I am not criticizing. There has been a lot of good advice here. Just being specific.

One of the interesting things I have noticed on this thread is that people are much more comfortable when considering thinking habits or motor habits but when it comes to habits of feeling people get uncomfortable with the idea. They get scared that it must "mean" something terrible and personal about themselves if there is a feeling involved. People wouldn't assume this with an image or word so why an emotion? This is the unfortunate legacy of many interpretive therapeutic notions and why the why question is often a danger (a feeling habit will produce a rationalization that is usually a red herring). However, habits of feeling are everywhere in every moment of our lives and the very basis of culture. Japanese people get hungry when they hear people slurping their food, we might feel nauseous then think it is rude and act to tell the other to stop being rude. There is nothing particularly deep and meaningful about it but the notion that emotion is deep and meaningful still prevents people from facing those habits.

In terms of the problems of motor habits.. they can provide good ways to direct the energy of expressed feeling habits as this gives the system a way to utilize the resources rather than suppress activity. Emotions are designed to prepare the system and direct its resources for some action. When action has been taken in the form of behavior, decision etc the emotion switches off. If none is taken it gets into sleep. Of course this is only temporary because the feeling habit is still preceding it so is likely to recur. You sometimes can switch to a different expression like when Phil tried to redirect at squeezing a ball. This is like stopping smoking and eating instead though. Not really a solution but a healthier patch.

I bet that if the feelings that occur before the daytime clenching were to disappear that the left over motor habit would be very very easy to retrain using any of the suggested methods so far.

I really wish we could forget this notion that if there's an emotion happening at some point in a sequence of experienced events that it must mean there is something deep, meaningful and personal about it and to be afraid to go there. We are still suffering from old hand-me-down notions of emotion that really just get in the way.

One of the other common ways people avoid dealing with feeling habits is to disassociate because it works really really well and with many years practice happens instantly so you wouldn't even know its there!

One of the good things about what Phil has done so far is to notice he is doing some things he wasn't aware he has been doing until now. He certainly noticed some motor activity that he didn't know he was doing. I bet there are a couple more interesting things to be curious about.

I agree with Joseph that questions like "Why? What's the positive intention? etc.." are bad questions because they lead to the old fallacy of emotions are deep and meaningful for same reasons as above. They at best mislead and frustrate or at worst scare the shit out of people. None of which lead to a better place. This is why I think that techniques like 6 step reframe are nice ways to skirt around an issue and rarely use that kind of thing now. The idea of "positive intention" plays into this over-meaning of things.

What are you actually doing? "awareness type" questions without any interpretation will get to more relevant information to what could be worth changing. Interpretation tends to lead to places that just drive you away from the really useful info.

People often live at such a removed level of awareness, paying attention to their "meaning" generating machine rather than what they are actually doing. Instead of noticing what they are doing they are thinking about what they are doing and then having feelings about those thoughts and thinking about those. This is a bad cultural habit. We have been trained since young with reprimands like "for god's sake boy, think about what you are doing". This is nonsense. It is better to notice what you are doing. Then you have something worth changing.

Jeez I am in a ranting mood at the moment!.. Sorry if this is a bit of a tangent but it made me think again about making things too meaningful..

I think some of the above is also why I tend to think parts don't exist anymore and that they again play into the hands of the meaning machine.

Supposing someone had a feeling habit of being sad in response to some pattern match and then had learned over time to instantly disassociate as a solution to that (matching that pattern instantly as it arrises). You could conceive of this as "part of me is sad, part of me feels numb" because they happen at virtually the same time. However, this leads away from what they are actually doing and inserts an extra layer of meaning to deal with which is not automatically helpful.

I could suggest to someone that they have a part that likes cornflakes and they could create that experience by taking that concept and filtering their experience through it. There is no part of their brain responsible for liking cornflakes as far as my limited neurology knowledge goes. It is crazy but people can do it. Of course people come with their own concepts so can also come with their own "parts". Then it might be worth using them because you are "speaking their language." which means they don't have to translate between levels.

I tend to not use submodalities either unless people mention them. Someone said to me the other day "I need to put a sharp edge around this to make it more important". Guess what, that's when I use submodalities because it already makes sense to them and they communicate that way!

The interesting thing about submodalities is that they automatically change when a feeling habit changes without even touching them directly. If I change a feeling, suddenly things may look brighter!

To Jay, Joseph and John,

Thank you for your responses in helping me move towards a solution.

I will spend some time will your posts, and reflect on them.

The things which stand out to me at the moment are the comment about the wells from Jay, Joseph's echoing it in reaffirming that the use of the MotivAider is a good strategy (after all, it DOES reduce my muscle tension in jaws and face during the day--I don't clench at all during waking hours now!), and John's comment on increased awareness, which resonates well with me at this point in time.

There is so much more that I could say right now, but I am about to go enjoy a delicious lunch with my other half, who I have not seen for a week.

More later, perhaps after a lovely bowl of steaming soup...

Phil