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Ultimately, dentists and mental health professionals agree that tackling this issue will involve addressing stress and anxiety along with preventive dental care to ensure that complications don’t arise in the future.

\"Night guards do not stop patients from clenching and grinding, but it does protect the teeth and joint while doing so,\" Innabi-Danial said.

Mouth guards, however, can be cost-prohibitive, with few insurances covering the expense, and dentists also caution that over-the-counter guards may not adequately protect a patient's teeth. Innabi-Danial said that if night guards, behavioral intervention, jaw and tongue exercises and a diet consisting of softer foods do not help, then patients can consider having Botox injected in their jaw muscle.

“Mouth guards are just one piece of it,\" Pressner added. \"I always recommend meditation, yoga, trying to separate their workspace from relaxation space, exercise, all those things for my patients as soon as I notice signs of teeth grinding. This can have so many benefits to their dental and jaw health down the line.\"

Jacinta Leyden, M.D., is a psychiatry resident physician at Harvard's Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and Dr. Stephanie Widmer is an emergency medicine physician and medical toxicology fellow in New York. Both are contributors to the ABC News Medical Unit.

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