Stress for Dentist and Patient

Here I'm going to look at one of them. What is this something that is common to both dentist and patient at the time of treatment without which both would simply die? The answer I am thinking of is that both need to breathe.

Breath - the single most important fact of our life. Breath is a resource. Breath is energy. Breath brings oxygen to the places that need to heal. And breath is a free natural resource that can be used right there in the surgery for the benefit of both dentist and patient alike.
An obvious truth you might say but as such it has gone largely unrecognised as a help to the dentist and their patient. That is maybe unless maybe you are a dentist and a practitioner of mindfulness meditation. Then you might have used the breath to calm your patients. Or if you're like me, a meditator myself of some 30 years standing, you may have just naturally used your breath to settle yourself in the dentist's chair and take your mind off an unpleasant dental intervention. In fact this has sometimes meant I have been able to successfully avoid an injection for a superficial filling.

But there is more to be gained from these facts of life than this. Today the practice of mindfulness is gathering pace throughout the world as an alternative to drugs treatment for the treatment of stress, pain, illness and depression. But it can be used and applied by anyone. Anyone who can breathe can practise Mindfulness.

However it would appear that dentistry profession has been slow to catch on to mindfulness compared to other medical competencies although the Faculty of Dentistry at Dalhousie University has incorporated it into the curriculum for undergraduates.

So what is Mindfulness? Mindfulness is awareness, recollection, bringing the mind which has become scattered and lost in 'thought-worlds' back to that moment of now, awareness, to that moment we are aware that we are aware, that precious moment which distinguishes us as humans from other life forms. To this moment, the only moment in fact, the present moment. Coming into the present like this is something we all do, something innate, something which makes us human. Something that gives us a little gap of consciousness before we go back into a new 'thought world' and in a way back into unconsciousness.

OK so how might this be important for a dentist?. A dentist is busy, stressed, under time pressure all the livelong day. Many dentists are suffering from stress; this is well-documented. That precious moment of awareness can be used by the dentist to make a qualitative difference while he or she is working. We come back into the moment, we relax, we are present, it feels good, we remember our posture. Our breath links us to the earth and can be used consciously to bring ease and refreshment to our body.

Mindfulness of breathing is learning to use the breath to link us to our whole body so we are not just using our head brain but the whole of our 'body brain' while we work. This is actually hugely important to our health. It is in a way a small adjustment but a hugely qualitative one in controlling our stress levels.

This is very much the territory of what I teach on my groundbreaking course Mindfulness and Dentistry. Mindfulness is proving to be an important strategy for avoiding stress generally but it has interesting applications in the dentistry field.

Once the dentist has mastered mindfulness for himself or herself he or she can use it with patients to help them to settle, relax and sometimes avoid sedation. This is done using simple verbal skills to create relaxation. Thus the patient can have a more relaxing experience in the surgery and leave happier, maybe even healthier.