Hi, I’m Dr David Cowhig, founder of Dental Wellness. And we’re talking today about the Dental Wellness Week, which introduces the Oral Fitness Plan, which makes you really think about how your dentist should be a major part of your health program for optimal health and longevity.

So we’ve gone through the F, I, T, N and E, and now we’re at the first S for sleep. One of the first questions I ask my patients is how well do you sleep? And often, in this stressful time, people are not sleeping well; they’re waking up a lot. Sometimes they wake up and have to go to the bathroom more than once at night. And sometimes their partners snore or keep them awake, or, potentially, they’ve had some water damage in their house, and there are mould problems. And then that’s affecting the nose, which makes them mouth breathe and then wakes them up a lot. So they’re really not getting good quality healing sleep.

It’s so important to get deep healing sleep, where your body’s able to rest and detox and all of the supplements that you might be taking to actually absorb those supplements. So it would help if you got into a deep sleep for that. And the sleep cycle works in a 90-minute cycle. So you need at least four 90-minute cycles to really have optimal health. 

Often if you are mouth breathing because of previously discussed issues, your nervous system is turned on instead of down-regulated. And your parasympathetic nervous system, which is the healing calming system that’s controlled by the vagus nerve, is not allowed to work properly. So you wake up exhausted because your sympathetic nervous system (fight-or-flight response) was activated, and your adrenals have been working hard all through the night – they probably keep you alive because you’re not breathing properly. That’s a major problem we see as dentists. We’re not able to diagnose sleep apnea, but we see all the signs in the mouth. We see the dry mouth. We see the signs of reflux. We see the ridging on the sides of your tongue and inside of your cheeks going all rigid, which is a sign that you are clenching your teeth.
And if you can only breathe through your mouth and you’re clenching your teeth, you can’t breathe through your nose; then your body’s going under major stress. So then the body will say, we’ve got to get things alive, and you push your jaw forward to open your airway, pull your tongue away from the back of your mouth so you can breathe properly. And then you open your mouth and start snoring. So you get wear on the front teeth and fatigue in the morning.
So if we can get you breathing through your nose, using a splint or other forms of dentistry, then you’re going to sleep deeper. Your whole nervous system (because the nasal breathing stimulates that vagus nerve, that parasympathetic to kick in) will allow your body to heal, recover, and go into those deep and quality 90-minute sleep cycles. So that’s where dentistry plays a major part in that.

Keep Smiling,
It’s good for You!

Dr David Cowhig, the founder of the Dental Wellness clinics, is a pioneer in holistic metal free dentistry & aesthetics, providing scientific-based biological dentistry. We support you as an individual and take into account the variety of factors that can lead to dental and oral health problems. We believe passionately that creating health and beauty around us is an integral part of life and you will feel these qualities in our dental care. You can find us at The Gap in Brisbane, focussing on holistic aesthetic total metal-free dentistry.

Contact Dental Wellness on 07 3511 1399 or email reception@dentalwellness.com.au.

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