To give you a helping hand, and to help make managing your dental health easier, we’ve put together some handy hacks for dealing with dental anxiety and fear. Read on for everything that you need to know.
Be open and honest with your dentist
If you find that dental anxiety holds back your ability to look after your teeth, it’s important to be open and honest with your dentist about how you’re feeling.
Or, if you don’t feel comfortable talking to your current dentist about how you’re feeling, then perhaps you might want to consider finding another dentist who better understands your anxiety and is willing to take steps to help calm your fears and support how you’re feeling.
Look at all the options
When it comes to managing your dental fear, it’s important that you take the time to look at all of your options for managing how you’re feeling. Your dentist should be able to help you manage any fears that you’re having, such as offering sedation dentistry if you’re fearful of having work done, for instance.
Or, if you’re nervous to have a check up, your dentist might be able to offer to let you come in for a look around beforehand, to help you to familiarise yourself with the setting and to help make the process feel a lot less daunting.
Learn coping mechanisms that help
You might find that learning certain coping mechanisms might help to make dealing with dental anxiety will help to make coping a little easier. When it comes to coping mechanisms, everyone has their own ways of coping, so it’s a case of finding the methods that work best for you.
This could be using white noise to help calm and soothe your anxieties, it could be listening to music or playing an audio book while you wait. You might find that reading a book or using your Kindle while you wait for your appointment helps. Or, perhaps bringing a friend or family member with you to your appointment will help to keep your anxiety at bay. It’s imporant to find that coping mechanisms that work best for you.
There you have it, a guide to how you can make dealing with dental anxiety a little less daunting.
