Hypnotherapy Benefits in Dentistry

Hypnotherapy or Hypnosis is a psychological procedure in which your subconscious mind gets reprogrammed. The procedure puts your mind into harmony and makes it more susceptible to suggestions. It is often used to gain control over bad behaviors and to reduce pain and anxiety. Hypnotherapy in relation with medical procedure has a history of over 100 years. Since pain and anxiety are part and parcel of medical procedures, hypnosis experienced a wide usage here. In particular to Dentistry, usage of hypnotherapy is called Hypnodontics and it comes with wide variety of uses.

 Hypnotherapy benefits in Dentistry

• Anxiety and Phobia Reduction

A recent study finds that the reason for irregular visiting habits of dental patients is mainly because of their dental anxiety and fear towards dental procedures. Many people get anxious while visiting a dentist or a dental office. They are often worried about the procedures they had to undergo. Many of them have phobias related to needle, injection and drill usage, which they find very uncomfortable. In such cases, hypnotherapy works great. It reduces the fear and anxiety by pushing the mind into harmony. It trains the mind to fearlessly accept the dental procedures.

• Pain Reduction

Hypnotherapy tries to induce numbness in specific parts which undergo dental procedures, thereby reducing the pain a patient experiences. There are cases where hypnosis is being used as an alternative to anesthesia, this is called hypnoanesthesia. Here the patient’s mind will be trained to undergo dental procedures in absence of anesthesia induced numbness.

• To Stop Gagging

Though gagging is a natural reflex to protect against choking, it makes dental procedures very tough. The patient always tries to reject any thing that is put into mouth, may it be a drill or a needle. Hypnotherapy helps reducing such unwanted reflexes.

• To Stop Grinding

Grinding or Bruxism is a very bad habit, but it happens unknowingly. Grinding leads to reduction of enamel thickness. Hypnotherapy helps in reduction of grinding by training the subconscious mind.

Other than these, hypnotherapy benefits dentistry in many other ways like

– Making patient comfortable with dental appliances and chair.

– Reducing unnecessary Salivation.

– Speeding up post procedure healing.