Preparing for oral surgery can be stressful and it can cause a lot of fear and anxiety in patients who have either never gone through it before, or who had a previous negative experience with dentists. To get over or at least diminish that fear and stress to some extent, consider the following simple but potent measures:
- Deep breaths might be considered a trivial measure that doesn’t do much, however, they can help you a great deal right before any kind of dental procedure. Breathing is an activity we do every second of every day, so it’s the easiest to use if you want to condition or decondition your mind from focusing on the worst things. Deep, slow breathing and abdominal breathing is often used by yogis to quiet their minds and let go of doubt before engaging in trying physical activities.
- Listening to calming music or playing some of your favorite tunes either at home, or in the car, on your way to the dentist’s office, might really help you feel at ease. The right music and sounds have a mysterious way of helping us feel soothed and calm, sometimes music even being known to affect physical functions in the body, such as regulating blood pressure.
- Practice
journaling to get all those negative thoughts out of your mind and onto
paper, where they can no longer cause you any trouble. Journaling is an
excellent way to order our thoughts and make sense of them, sometimes even
working to calm anxiety and break down negative thought patterns and behavioral
patterns that we were never even aware of before. Most importantly see oral surgeons from places like HICD for a truly professional dental experience.
