Are You Afraid of Going to The Dentist?
How to make your dentist appointments less scary and painful? Dare we aim for pleasant?
In this short guide, I will lead you through a complete process of accepting the inevitable, making peace with it, and relaxing while under any unpleasant procedure that causes you fear or discomfort.
A recent visit to the dentist's office prompted this article, but it applies to any other situation where you fear and anticipate pain, discomfort, humiliation, or adversity.
Life will serve up these situations every once in a while; there is no avoiding it. So it’s important to learn to deal with them head-on and make them as easy to handle as humanly possible.
It’s funny how, out of all the doctors, dentists seem to be the scariest of them all. Like you, I don’t enjoy visiting the dentist’s office. Having someone probe, chip, and drill in your mouth is no fun. It is necessary, though. We all need to take good care of our teeth or suffer some unpleasant consequences.
Three things are true in this regard:
We need dentists, and we need to take regular care of our teeth.
It often hurts and is unpleasant.
Our fear of the dentist and the pain we will have to endure is usually bigger than the actual pain and suffering of the procedure.
What Makes Dentists So Scary?
Well, the procedures do indeed hurt sometimes. Touching the nerves in our teeth, it’s anything but pleasurable. So the fear is somewhat justifiable. The problem is that being afraid of the dentist doesn’t mean we can skip visiting them.
It’s not really a choice because if we cave into this fear, we will end up with useless and painful teeth, making our life miserable. We exchange a couple of hours every year (at worst) of discomfort and a bit of pain to be able to eat, smile, talk, and live pain-free the rest of the year. The math checks out. It’s a good deal.
Since we cannot avoid the situation, we must accept it and make peace with it.
The first thing we must do is accept that we will have to go to the dentist occasionally. Yes, we will have to endure some unpleasantness and perhaps even some pain. Unfortunately, it is unavoidable.
There is no use fighting and resisting this fact of life. We must learn to accept and lean into it instead of running away. When something is inevitable, the best thing we can do is stop resisting and accept it fully. With this step alone, we will alleviate 90% of the stress of any situation.
Mental re-frame:
From: “A dentist is a horrible person who is going to cause me pain.”
To: “A dentist is a good person who is only trying to help me.”
From: “I’m afraid of how much it’s going to hurt.”
To: “It’s usually not as bad as I make it out to be in my head. I’ll be fine. I can handle it, and I’ll feel better because of it later.”
From: “I don’t want to go to the dentist. How can I postpone this visit?”
To: “I want to get this over with as quickly as possible; I don’t have any choice. What must be done must be done.”
Ask yourself:
Can I just accept that it is inevitable? That, like it or not, I have to do this?
If I know that it is unavoidable, can I let go of resisting it?
If I know that my resistance to the situation is causing the problem to appear much worse than it is, can I stop adding more suffering to this situation?
If I know for a fact that I have to do this, why can’t I just get it over with and be done?
How to Make Your Dentist's Appointment Less Frightening?
Examine the fear itself. Do it in writing. Write for as long as it takes to feel better about going to the dentist. You will feel the shift within you when you’re ready. Until then, keep writing and analyzing your fears.
What are you afraid of exactly?
Is it the pain, embarrassment, or unpleasantness?
Is it the cost of the procedure?
Is it a fear of a dentist actually deliberately harming you?
Is it something else, perhaps? (dig deeper)
Where is this fear coming from?
Did you have any bad experiences with dentists?
Does it originate from childhood?
Is this the same dentist?
Is this the same situation?
Is it just in your head?
Is the fear justifiable?
Can it really hurt all that much?
Can you handle it?
What are the odds that this visit to the dentist’s office will be painful?
Is it really worth worrying about it?
Does being afraid make any difference?
Is it beneficial to be afraid of going to the dentist?
Does it make it any less necessary?
Is it going to hurt more or less if we are terrified of the procedure?
If it doesn’t help but makes the whole thing a lot more challenging to endure, what’s the point of being afraid?
Fear is seldom justifiable and never beneficial. It makes everything appear and feel much worse than it needs to be.
You could be shaking with fear for days, perhaps even weeks, before your dentist’s appointment. But the actual pain, the thing you fear the most, will realistically last from a second to maybe a few minutes, and then some slight discomfort, a headache at worst, for a few hours.
The unbearable pain never really lasts long. While unpleasant, it is not something we cannot endure. The fear of it, the anticipation, causes us far more problems than actual physical pain.
Release that fear and resistance, and I promise you that you will feel a million times better about the situation.
The situation is inevitable; your fear and resistance are not!
How to Feel Better During the Procedure Itself?
We have been covering the anticipation of the dentist’s appointment: the fear and resistance. Now we find ourselves in the seat, with our mouths open and the doctor's light shining in our faces. We’re strapped in our torture chamber, so to speak, at least in our minds.
Again, the first thing we must do is stop resisting the situation. We are there. This is happening. Accept it and let it happen.
When frightened, simply affirm that whatever will happen will happen anyway. There is no avoiding it. You can handle this, and once it’s done, you’ll feel better about everything.
Relax your body.
Notice when you are cramping up, clinching your muscles, and try to relax your body deliberately.
You may even go from limb to limb, body part to body part, and relax it one by one. Close your eyes, imagine the body part you’re trying to relax, and simply command it to relax. It sounds weird, but it is a wonderful practice derived from Yoga Nidra.
When we clinch up, contract our muscles, and take shallow breaths, it triggers the same response in our body as if we were being physically assaulted. That is not what is happening. So relax!
After a while, you’ll notice tensioning up again. Repeat the process. Relax, relax, relax!
Focus on your breathing.
Whatever you do, don’t mentally follow what your doctor or dentist is doing.
It will cause your mind to anticipate pain, even where there is no pain, and make things unnecessarily unpleasant. Ignore it completely. Focus on anything but what is happening at this moment. The opposite of mindfulness, if you will.
The easiest thing to focus on, with the most immediate effect on how you feel, is focusing on your breath.
Take deep, long, slow, and mindful breaths. Breathe with your stomach. If you’re doing breathing exercises, you might as well do them right.
You can also count the breaths. Prolong the inhales and exhales. The slower and deeper, the better. That will flood your body with “feel good chemicals” and take your focus away from the scary procedure to something pleasant.
478 breathing technique is perfect for this. Inhale for four seconds, hold for seven and exhale for eight. Keep it simple, repeat as necessary, and let it do its magic.
When in pain, breathe through it.
Believe it or not, the severity of perceived pain in any situation can vary immensely.
One of the simplest ways of minimizing pain and suffering is to focus fully on actively breathing through it. Deep, strong, slow breaths!
Focusing on your breathing and taking deep, slow breaths instead of panic and anxiety-inducing shallow breaths can considerably lessen the pain you feel.
Don’t think about why it works; just trust that it does, and go all in.
If you go hard with your breathing for more extended periods, you will begin to feel lightheaded. The sensation can be very similar to getting high. I don’t recommend doing it while driving, for example, but it’s the perfect medicine when sitting in a dentist’s chair and enduring otherwise unbearable pain.
Refocus your attention with visualization.
You can take your mind away from the moment's unpleasantness by indulging in some visualization. Just make sure it’s pleasant. It can be a scene that makes you feel good, a project you’re working on, on something else entirely. You're doing great as long as it’s deep and immersive, and you get all of your senses involved in this visualization.
Take your mind on a pleasant journey while the good doctor works on you.
You must be there physically, but there is no need to be there mentally. Go to the beach, do something you love in your mind. Why not turn something unpleasant into something wonderful?
Go through your favorite affirmations.
If you have a mantra or a favorite affirmation, this would be a great time to play with it. You’re stuck in this chair, so you might as well make the best of it.
Pick something that makes you “feel good” and resonates with you.
The purpose of this exercise is to flood your system with feel-good vibes and forget that you’re being worked on at the moment.
Instead of feeling like a frightened victim, empower yourself with powerful affirmations. As silly as they sound, they do work. At least in the capacity to make you feel better, which is the purpose here.
The Eternal Choice: Small Pain Now vs. Large Pain Later
When presented with the choice, we should always choose the “small pain now, to avoid the large pain later.”
It’s no different with our teeth. We should always go to the dentist and fix what can be fixed before it becomes a real problem. The same goes for any similar situation. Don’t postpone necessary things just because they’re scary.
The fear and discomfort of the procedure will always be less problematic than the consequences of ignoring the problem and letting it grow into unbearable pain.
In our case, we must make the deliberate choice to accept a few minutes, or even hours of potential discomfort, with moments of pain in between, to avoid years of it in the future. Not to mention being able to chew our food.
It’s a good trade, don’t you think?
So, to recap:
Accept the inevitable situation, and stop resisting it.
Face your fear head-on and analyze it.
When in the chair, relax your body, breathe deeply, and focus your mind on anything but what is happening at the moment.
As you might have guessed by now, this post is not just about going to the dentist but about learning to face our fears, go willingly through adversity, and endure the pain we must endure.
“Pain is inevitable; suffering is optional.” by unknown
May your next visit to the dentist be a pleasant one.
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