Stress Reduction – At Your Dental Office

By Alice Charland Bassford, DMD, MAGD

ASE Dental

. http://www.silverspringdmd.com/

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Stress Reduction – At Your Dental Office

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Excess stress and anxiety are common experiences for most people – who among us doesn’t feel stressed from the daily beltway grind? In fact, 70% of adults in the U.S. say they feel stress or anxiety daily. Common top stressors include caring for an elderly parent, relationship and job issues, financial obligations, chronic illness/injury and grief/loss.

While we all feel stressed from time to time, the holidays offer their own special stressors that can make us feel even worse — such as a family get-together that devolves into a fight over politics or a shopping trip for gifts that maxes out your credit card.

The stress response is the body’s way of protecting you. When working properly, it helps you stay focused, energetic, and alert. In emergency situations, stress can save your life – giving you extra strength to defend yourself, for example, or spurring you to slam on the brakes to avoid a car accident. But beyond a certain point, stress stops being helpful and starts causing major damage to your health.

Chronic stress disrupts nearly every system in your body. It can suppress your immune system, upset your digestive and reproductive systems, increase the risk of heart attack and stroke, and speed up the aging process. It can even rewire the brain, leaving you more vulnerable to anxiety, depression, and other mental health problems.

Because of the widespread damage stress can cause, it’s important to find effective stress management techniques that work for you. Local stress relief sessions, such as what we offer at ASE Dental, can help you break the hold stress has on your life, so you can be happier, healthier, and more productive.

Each 40-minute stress reduction session includes:

• Ultra-sound

• Cold laser

• E-Stim/Alpha-Stim

• Weighted blanket

• Muscle manipulation of the head and neck area with choice of topical pain relief lotions

• White noise or binaural programs (BRAIN WAVE)

A series of physical medicine modalities are an important part of the neuromuscular rehabilitation and treatment program. Ultrasound of the muscles is used to increase blood flow and heat is used to improve circulation in sore and strained muscles. Electrical stimulation is used to reduce muscle spasms and referral pain and stimulate the nerves. Manual muscle manipulation further increases blood flow, breaks up knots in trigger points, and decreases both pain and inflammation. Low-level cold laser application further reduces pain and inflammation while simultaneously rehabilitating the neurological pathways.

The Alpha-Stim Unit is a cranial electrical stimulation device that utilizes a micro-current to deliver a unique waveform that interacts with bioelectricity – thereby allowing the body to achieve freedom from neck and head tension and stress.

Lastly, patients are taught how to perform critical therapeutic exercises for maintaining muscular health and proper range of motion in the head and neck. These exercises are taught in the office and regimens are sent home with the patient so self-treatment can continue in the home.

Keeping stress at a manageable level is important for your overall well-being. If you find yourself experiencing chronic stress consider a stress reduction session.