Mindfulness practice Part One: Before your dental visit
Understanding why
Fear can trigger by thoughts alone
It’s not an uncommon sensation that your heart is beating fast, palms are sweating, especially when the moment your name was called and a nurse is leading you to onto the dental chair. You almost like taking the next chance running away from the scene. Our body is entering into an automatic pilot mode, despite the dental treatment hasn’t started yet. Understanding that our body is a highly sophisticated creature, which is engineered in a way to protect us from potential danger, warning us to be aware of the coming events. Besides, our body is the best vehicle to store memories in a form of emotions. Perhaps it was about an unpleasant dental experience since your childhood, the sensation still lingers to the present and perceives every dental visit as painful experiences. Or simply by thinking about the sound of dental drills alone can give you chills.
In reverse, thoughts alone can ease your anxiety
Our subconscious brain inherently stored all these hidden emotions associated with these memories from past dental experiences. It is programmed in such a way when similar event will be happened, our subconscious mind begin to get reference from the past emotions, then suggesting any future dental visits will gonna be painful as in the past. Hence, your body now begins to react to the future event, manifesting as anxiety or worries which hinder your decision to make a change of the present perspective. Nevertheless, the good news is by understanding how our body reacts to fear, we can empower ourselves to combat the thought-provoking fear, transforming that into positive attitudes by utilizing specific mindfulness practices.
Creating a new headspace
Mindfulness is quite often misunderstood as a spiritual practice that only happens in temples or the Himalayas mountains. To demystify, mindfulness is a technique or an exercise to train our mind and re-condition our state of being, allow us to feel at ease, and bring a sense of awareness to our body.
You may already have experienced it during your yoga classes or listening to meditation podcasts, which you probably still remember the feeling of lightness in your body afterward. Even if you find it uneasy to settle the busy mind, don’t be discouraged, because it happens to everybody!! What makes a difference is really about persistence and letting go of expectations.
This mindfulness series consists of 3 parts. I will guide you through step-by-step how to create a calm inner space by listening to my guided meditation clip below.
♠️ Part 1 is the very first step to mentally prepare yourself for the upcoming dental visits. Setting an intention of how our body reacts before we actually enter the dental office.
♠️ Part 2, I will teach you essential breathing techniques to empower you how to relax whenever/ wherever you’re feeling anxious about any future dental treatments.
♠️ Part 3 is I will integrate my professional experience, to teach you how to reduce dental fear by practising a short guided meditation. To ease your mind and stepping onto the oral health journey.
SO LET’S BEGIN!
