4 Ways to Overcome Your Fear of Going to the Dentist
4 Ways to Overcome Your Fear of Going to the Dentist
Going to the dentist at least twice a year is important to maintain good dental hygiene. It is also one of the best ways to ensure that you have a beautifully white smile throughout your life.
If you are among the roughly 60% of people around the world who admit to being afraid of going to the dentist. Then keeping up with your dental health, and consequently your smile, can be incredibly tough. Thankfully, there are four proactive steps you can take if you’d like to overcome your phobia and become more comfortable with going to the dentist. Here are 4 ways to overcome your fear of going to the dentist.
1. Understand Your Fear
There are many reasons why people suffer from dental phobia. Sometimes, the trauma of a past experience can be enough to put someone off of going to the dentist ever again. Other times a general fear of the potential pain that one might experience during a dental procedure is the root cause of the phobia.
As with any type of phobia, the first step to overcoming your fear of going to the dentist is to understand exactly what that fear entails. The more you know about why you are afraid, the better your chances of getting over that fear become.
2. Don’t Go it Alone
If you have anxiety over going to the dentist, there is no reason why you have to carry that burden alone. Often, anxiety can be managed if you are able to enlist the help and support of a close friend or family member whom you trust to accompany you to the dentist.
You would be hard-pressed to find a dental office that would be against you having an extra person in the room with you, especially if you explain your fears. Having a little extra moral support right there with you in the form of a good friend can go a long way in making you feel more comfortable in the dentist’s chair.
3. Find the Right Dentist
Every dentist is perfectly aware of the fact that so many people suffer from anxiety surrounding dental work. Because of this, many practices have methods in place to help their patients cope. So if you are searching for teeth cleaning services in Brunswick, you are sure to find the right dentist who can help you manage your fears.
4. Consider Sedation
It might sound like an extreme measure to take, but your dental health is incredibly important to your overall physical wellness. For this reason, it is worth taking into consideration the option of sedation during dental work if other measures aren’t enough to calm your anxieties about going to the dentist.
Depending on the severity of both your anxiety level and the work that you are having done, the sedation method you choose can be as simple as the inhalation of “laughing gas.” This gas is a mixture of oxygen and nitrous oxide, and its effects are short-term and virtually harmless.
