Jaw clenching

Jaw clenching is one form of bruxism: repeated activity of the jaw muscles in which you clench or grind your teeth, or brace or push your jaw forward. It can happen during sleep (sleep bruxism) or while you are awake (awake bruxism), and in otherwise healthy people experts now treat it as a behaviour rather than a disorder, one that can be a risk factor for some problems (Lobbezoo et al., 2018).

Why do people clench their jaw?

It isn’t always clear. The NHS says teeth grinding is often linked with stress and anxiety, which it calls the most common cause. Other links include sleep problems such as snoring and sleep apnoea, some medicines for sleep problems, depression or anxiety, smoking, and drinking a lot of alcohol or caffeine (NHS). Stress shows up in the body in other ways too; see Can stress cause back pain?

How common is jaw clenching?

Common, though hard to measure. A systematic review of adult studies found awake bruxism in 22% to 31% of people and frequent sleep bruxism in about 13%. The authors warned that most of the data came from one or two questionnaire items, which is a weak way to measure it (Manfredini et al., 2013).

A newer approach asks people in the moment. In 153 healthy young adults, a smartphone app sent 20 random alerts a day for a week, and each time they reported what their jaw was doing (Zani et al., 2021):

• relaxed jaw muscles: 76.4% of reports
• teeth touching: 13.6%
• jaw braced: 7.0%
• teeth clenched: 2.5%
• teeth grinding: 0.5%

So for about a quarter of the time, their jaw was doing something other than resting, and simply having the teeth together was the most common habit. If you catch your teeth touching while you work, you are far from unusual.

Does jaw clenching cause neck pain?

Jaw clenching can lead to a painful jaw and to temporomandibular disorder (TMD), which affects how the jaw moves (NHS, NHS TMD). Jaw and neck problems often turn up together:

• A 2025 meta-analysis of nine studies found that people with neck pain had about 3.6 times the odds of TMD compared with people without it, opened their mouths less far and had more tender jaw muscles. The certainty of the evidence was very low, because all the studies were snapshots of one point in time (Bizzarri et al., 2025).
• In 40 women, 20 of them with chronic TMD and neck disability, jaw disability and neck disability were closely correlated. Tenderness in the upper trapezius and in the temple muscle went with worse jaw and neck function (Silveira et al., 2015).

What studies haven’t shown is which problem leads to which. Posture is often blamed, but a review of 17 studies concluded that the link between TMD and head and neck posture is still controversial and unclear, and the studies had several methodological flaws (Rocha et al., 2013). That includes forward head posture, and the common causes of neck pain from desk work apply whether or not you clench.

Jaw clenching and headaches

Headaches and earache are among the symptoms of teeth grinding, along with worn or broken teeth and disturbed sleep (NHS). TMD can cause a headache around the temples, and its pain may get worse when you feel stressed (NHS TMD). Sharp, shooting pain at the back of the head is a different pattern, described under greater occipital nerve, and neck-related headaches are covered in Can neck pain cause headaches?

What helps with jaw clenching?

The NHS suggests finding ways to relax, such as breathing exercises, music and regular exercise, improving your sleep routine, not smoking, and not drinking too much alcohol or caffeine. A dentist may recommend a mouth guard or splint worn at night to protect the teeth (NHS). For TMD, the NHS adds: don’t clench your teeth, because apart from when eating, your teeth should be apart (NHS TMD).

When to get help

See a dentist if you grind your teeth and have tooth damage or sensitive teeth, pain in your jaw, face or ear, or if a partner says you grind in your sleep (NHS). Ask for an urgent GP appointment or contact NHS 111 if you can’t eat or drink, have double vision or loss of vision, or pain and tenderness at the side of the head or on the scalp (NHS TMD). The same applies to a headache with jaw pain when eating (NHS).