My view on bruxism (teeth grinding)

Why does it occur? How it relates to aging? How to fix it?

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A lot of people talk about grinding their teeth.

When I hear this I directly associate it with the fact that that person will have more health issues and they will age at an accelerated rate.

Meaning those two things are directly connected. Not correlation… i’m talking causation.

Every person that grinds their teeth will have increasing health issues and start to look worse.

Hell, do a study if you want. You will find out that i’m right.

You will not find a single exception to my rule. Meaning you won’t find a single person that was grinding their teeth and had less health issues and started to look better. Not one.

I’ve paid attention to this shit for nearly a decade. And I’m saying this without a doubt.

So today let me break down this topic further so you can understand my lens.

What is bruxism?

Bruxism is basically grinding or clenching your teeth, usually while you're sleeping.

But many folks also do it during the day. Particularly when they are stressed.

The medical folks will give you all kinds of fancy explanations about stress and anxiety causing it, but I think they're missing the real story here. And i’ll explain more in the next section.

Most dentists' solution? Wear a nightguard to protect your teeth.

And surprise, surprise… for once what they are doing ends up being correct! Haha

But for reasons that they don’t fully comprehend.

Why does bruxism occur?

Here's what I think is really happening - your teeth don't fit together correctly.

And I don't mean in some minor way that needs adjusting. I mean your dental arches never developed the way they were supposed to. Because the skull and jaw that they are housed in also didn’t properly develop.

Look at any skull from our ancestors - they all had wide dental arches, straight teeth, and their wisdom teeth came in just fine.

This is the structure for which the jaw and teeth were designed. And remember that the jaw has quite a complex set of movements as it doesn’t just go up and down:

• Elevation and Depression: Elevation closes the mouth, while depression opens it.

• Protrusion and Retrusion: Protrusion moves the lower jaw forward, and retrusion moves it back.

• Lateral Excursion (Side-to-Side Movement): This allows the jaw to move left or right, essential for grinding food.

• Rotational and Translational Movements: These combined motions allow for complex movements such as chewing. The jaw rotates initially, then slides down the TMJ socket to open fully.

To account for all these movements, requires accurate engineering dimensions.

The engineering of the jaw

Think about it if you had to design an artificial jaw that could do all of these movements. It is not simple engineering, trust me.

Now imagine that you created an artificial jaw correctly but all of a sudden the dental arches didn’t quite develop correctly. And everything was only about 70% of the size it should be. After all this is essentially the case in 95%+ of modern Americans.

Due to the smaller size, the teeth would not fit together quite correctly and the wisdom teeth wouldn’t have space to come in at all. But despite this, you still need to complete the exact same movements.

What would happen?

I’ll tell you what will happen. Bruxism!

Bruxism is a function of the fact that your jaw was designed to have quite specific dimensions, which are not the case in most modern humans because of misdevelopment.

The skyscraper metaphor

Think of it like a building like a modern skyscraper. The modern skycrapers are built to have these swaying movements to account for things like the wind and earthquakes.

But what if the lead engineer decided to be stingy and at the last moment decided to just make everything 70% smaller.

And despite the fact that there was a perfect design that was proven to work many times in the past if it was 100% its intended size.. instead he just winged it with the design for the smaller size and built it on the fly.

What would happen after it is done and an earthquake hits?

There would be a far greater risk of things going wrong right? It is exactly the same with the jaw.

Because when your arches develop properly, your teeth fit together like a perfect puzzle. There's no need for grinding because everything is where it should be. The curve of spee (that natural curve where your back teeth are higher than your front teeth) is perfect.

In my view bruxism = aging

Here's something that you’ll probably be very skeptical of - I think bruxism is essentially what we call "aging".

When you grind your teeth, you're flattening the curve of spee. And when that happens, your skull starts to deflate like a balloon losing air.

Think about it - if your teeth never changed shape as you got older, would you actually age? I don't think so.

I think what we call aging is just the physical collapse that happens when we grind down our teeth and lose that crucial curve.

I know this sounds crazy, but I've experienced it myself multiple times. When my curve of spee flattens, I look and start to function as if i am aging at an expedited rate.

When I put it back, I started to look and function as if I was getting younger. And I've done this cycle enough times now to know it's not a coincidence.

How to fix bruxism

The solution is relatively simple. It’s the same stuff I’ve been talking about throughout this blog.

Stick to these principles:

1. Add vertical height

2. Unlock your occlusion (ie. upper and lower teeth do not have a fixed position together)

3. Develop more of a curve of spee over time.

And all you need to do this is a simple rubber mouthguard like a Reviv One (available at www.getreviv.com).

When you do this right, given enough time the grinding should stop on its own. Because your body no longer needs to try to "adjust" your bite through grinding - everything is already where it should be.

Closing thoughts

The medical establishment loves to treat symptoms instead of causes. They'll tell you bruxism is from stress, or it's genetic, or whatever. Then they'll sell you some expensive treatment that likely will not work.

But you gotta look deeper. Why are you grinding in the first place? What's wrong with your structural development that's making your body try to "correct" things through grinding?

Fix the root cause - the biomechanics - and the grinding typically resolves itself. I've seen this pattern play out not just with myself but with a number of folks in my test group.

Is it a quick fix? No. But it's a real fix. And in my view, it's the only fix that actually addresses what's really going on.

Remember - your body isn't stupid. If it's grinding your teeth, it's trying to tell you something. Maybe it's time we started listening to what it's actually saying instead of just trying to stop it from talking.