How to Stop Clenching Your Jaw

Stop clenching your jaw by first noticing your teeth are touching, then dropping into a relaxed rest position: lips closed, teeth slightly apart, tongue resting lightly behind your top front teeth. Massage the masseter muscle at your jaw hinge for 30 seconds, then add a minute of bilateral stimulation to calm the stress response usually driving the clench.

Maybe you catch it at a red light, mid-email, or the second you wake up: jaw locked tight, teeth pressed together, a dull ache creeping toward your temples. It’s one of the most common places stress hides in the body, and it’s genuinely fixable in the moment.

Why does your jaw clench when you’re stressed?

Muscle tension under stress works a lot like a reflex. The American Psychological Association explains that your body tightens the same way it would to brace for impact, and chronic stress keeps muscles in a near-constant state of guardedness.

For a lot of people, that bracing lands squarely in the jaw. A 2022 study of 328 students in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health found self-reported clenching or grinding in 39.33% of participants, most of it happening while awake rather than during sleep. The link between that clenching and stress, panic, and restlessness was statistically significant.

If your whole body feels wound up, not just your jaw, how to calm down fast covers a broader reset. And if a tight jaw is one sign among several that stress keeps piling up, our stress and burnout guide covers that wider pattern.

How do you relax a clenched jaw right now?

Do this seated or standing, right where you notice the clench.

Step 1: Notice it, then find your resting position

The instant you catch your teeth touching, let your jaw drop open slightly. Settle into “lips together, teeth apart”: lips closed, teeth held slightly apart, tongue resting lightly behind your top front teeth rather than pressed to the roof of your mouth. This is the relaxed jaw position habitual clenching tends to override.

Step 2: Massage the masseter

Find the muscle that bulges at your jaw hinge when you clench, just in front of your ear. Press two fingers into it and move in small circles for 20 to 30 seconds on each side.

Step 3: Add a short round of bilateral stimulation

Keep the loosening feeling in mind while you run one to two minutes of bilateral stimulation (BLS), the rhythmic left-right technique EMDR therapy is built around. The butterfly hug works well here: cross your arms and tap left, right, left, right on your upper arms at a slow, steady pace. EmEase, a self-guided EMDR app, runs this same rhythm through an on-screen moving target or alternating tones in the web app.

Step 4: Re-check, and repeat if needed

Notice the jaw again. Still tight? Run one more round of the massage and bilateral stimulation.

Does consciously relaxing your jaw actually cut down on clenching?

There’s real, if early, evidence behind it. A 2023 systematic review in the same journal looked at four trials using biofeedback, a method that makes you consciously aware of your own muscle activity, for daytime jaw clenching. Auditory and visual feedback measurably reduced excessive jaw-muscle activity within a few days. The review’s authors were upfront that most included studies carried a real risk of bias, so read this as promising, not settled.

That’s close to the same principle behind the resting-position habit above: noticing the muscle and deliberately releasing it, repeated often enough, is a genuine, low-risk lever, even while the research is still young.

The bilateral stimulation piece has its own separate support. A 2025 study in BJPsych Open found bilateral stimulation lowered autonomic arousal, the body’s alert state, in both people with PTSD and healthy volunteers with no trauma history. Since that alert state is what keeps a jaw braced in the first place, calming it is a reasonable target, not a proven muscle treatment. The butterfly hug specifically was designed to be self-administered, which is what makes it practical for a moment like this.

What about jaw clenching or grinding at night?

Nighttime clenching is a different problem, since you can’t consciously catch it while you’re asleep. Cleveland Clinic estimates up to 10% of adults grind or clench their teeth during sleep.

None of the awareness or bilateral stimulation steps above can reach you while you’re unconscious. A dentist can fit a nightguard, which protects your teeth from wear even if the underlying clenching continues. Lowering stress during the day, including with the steps above, may ease how much carries into the night, but it isn’t a substitute for that dental check.

When does jaw clenching need a dentist, not just a reset?

See a dentist or doctor if you notice:

• Teeth that look worn, chipped, or increasingly sensitive
• Jaw pain that doesn’t ease with rest
• A jaw that clicks, pops, or gets stuck when you open it
• Frequent morning headaches or a sore jaw on waking

These can point to real strain on the jaw joint, the kind a resting-jaw habit and bilateral stimulation alone won’t resolve. Our muscle tension guide covers easing stress-held tightness elsewhere in the body, and the body stress collection has more resets built the same way.

So, how do you stop clenching your jaw?

Notice the clench, drop your jaw into a relaxed resting position, massage the muscle at your jaw hinge, and add a short round of bilateral stimulation to calm the stress response underneath it. It’s a real, evidence-informed habit for daytime tension, not a fix for nighttime grinding or a strained jaw joint, both of which are worth a dentist’s attention.