Look closely at high-performing leaders and business owners under pressure, and you’ll find a near universal pattern hiding in plain sight:
- Clenched jaws during meetings
- Tight mouths while reading emails
- Subtle grinding while driving or thinking
You’re not just grinding your teeth, you’re grinding away your clarity, your confidence and your strategic competitor advantage.
This seemingly minor tension is not just a personal quirk or a harmless habit. This physiological affect becomes a business performance issue. It’s your nervous system doing it’s job, silently communicating and ringing the alarm bell in your body.
Do You Ignore Your Body Signals?
Left unchecked, it will cost you dearly. This is the silent power of your nervous system affecting your business results.
Your body screams the need to “relax your face”, yet probably rarely succeeds. But relentlessly your nervous system will communicate with your body in a desperate attempt to get your attention.
There is an ancient Ayurvedic teaching that says: “The jaw is where we hold what we never said.”
Translated into modern day cash and results by Deloittes in their 2022 statement: “Chronic stress is costing UK businesses £56 billion a year.”
What Jaw Clenching Really Means
Physiologically, jaw clenching is a red flag that your sympathetic nervous system (SNS). This is your “fight / flight” response which is activated, often chronically remains switched on and when unchecked is more likely to create accute or chronic wellness issues.
Neuroscience confirms: the masseter muscle, which is your main jaw muscle, is one of the strongest muscles in the body by weight. Chronic overuse due to clenching activates a constant low-grade stress response, impacting everything from heart rate to cortisol levels.
Cognitively, this silent tension decreases:
- Working memory
- Decision-making clarity
- Verbal communication accuracy
- Empathy and social processing
Research from the Journal of Oral Rehabilitation (2010) shows that teeth grinding and jaw clenching, technically called bruxism, is linked to anxiety, poor sleep quality, and executive dysfunction. These are the very things many leaders talk to me about and are plaguing their life and impacting their productivity, performance and their business results.
Now, I’m not a dentist, but through conversations with dentists I’ve learned that jaw clenching and teeth grinding can be damaging in the following ways:
- Cracks, worn enamel, and tooth fractures
- Increased dental costs and pain
- TMJ dysfunction (temporomandibular joint disorder) and this can be the root cause of migraines and neck tension.
A Stress-Driven, Profit-Leaking Pattern Emerging
Here’s where it hits the bottom line.
Tension stored in the jaw restricts oxygen intake, facial blood flow, and neural communication between the gut, heart, and brain. This is often referred to as the vagus nerve trifecta.
In turn this means less strategic thinking, more reactive decisions, poorer sleep, and a ripple effect through your team.
Thanks to neurological mirroring (mirror neurons) if you’re tense and clenching your jaw, your team likely is too.
Simply put:
Tense leaders create tense cultures and tense cultures…
- Communicate less clearly
- Trust less easily
- Innovate less often
- Burn out more quickly
This isn’t just about your teeth, it’s about the impact on your turnover.
And, let’s be clear this jaw clenching habit contributes directly to the £56 billion annual cost of stress to UK businesses (Deloitte, 2022), which equates to 2.2% of GDP. If we even halved this stress load, each UK business could unlock tens of thousands in hidden capacity and profitability.
I’ve done some calculations which show some quite remarkable shifts we can make in improving mental health at work. In summary when we dismantle the root of stress, not just soothing symptoms like many stress or workplace mental health interventions we find the following shift:
The average ROI on general mental health spend at work has dropped from the projected £1 for £5 return to an average of £3.40 per £1 and in many cases just about a break even.
However, leadership led nervous system recalibration unlocks a £5–£10 return per £1 spent because it shifts the root of stress, not just the symptoms.
Here’s a simple jaw relaxation practice to unlock higher ROI.
This is a hack I share with clients during Barefoot in the Boardroom sessions:
Jaw Drop & Hum Reset
- Sit or stand tall. (you can do this anywhere from an elevator to coffee shop queue)
- Inhale through your nose for 4 counts.
- On the exhale, soften your jaw completely (if you’ve not done this before, imagine your jaw dropping, as if it’s melting.)
- As you exhale, gently hum or a soft inaudible sigh. Let the vibration resonate in your mouth and face.
- Repeat 3–5 times.
The Immediate Impact:
- Activates the parasympathetic nervous system
- Stimulates the vagus nerve
- Lowers heart rate and blood pressure
- Clears mental fog in under 2 minutes
Longer Term Benefits (when practised daily):
- Reduced jaw tension and bruxism
- Improved sleep quality
- Increased verbal clarity and emotional regulation
- Higher-quality decision making
- A noticeable shift in team dynamics
Is Your Jaw Silently Sabotaging Your Purpose?
In ancient Chinese medicine, the jaw was called “the hinge of destiny.” If it’s tight, locked, or forced, your vision is too.
If you’re a leader, founder or advisor, unwittingly managing pressure with gritted teeth, remember this:
Stress isn’t something you manage. It’s something you dismantle.
And
Your jaw is one of the fastest portals to do just that.
Imagine everyone at work started relaxing their jaw three times a day. What might this do to the £56 billion stress debt, your productivity scores or employee fulfilment?
Let’s fix the stress root, not the symptoms.
Contact me to discover more about dismantling stress, improving personal peace, business performance and profitability.
Always
Gail