SleepGuard™ Stop Pain from Teeth Grinding & Clenching

As long as the mask you use with your CPAP machine does not have a support that takes up room on your forehead (where the SleepGuard biofeedback headband needs to sit) you can use the SleepGuard headband with you CPAP machine. The most popular CPAP masks these days are quite small, and the SleepGuard headband can be used fine with those CPAP masks.

Some people who sleep very deeply fear that they will not be able to train their subconscious mind to relax their response to the RelaxTone biofeedback sound, but most people who sleep very deeply discover that their subconscious can learn to respond during sleep without a problem if they do the daytime training as recommended. Since the SleepGuard unit is free to try (in the USA), and money-back guaranteed all over the world, we recommend you try it, because everyone deserves a way out of pain.

If you are a very light sleeper it is possible that the SleepGuard biofeedback headband is not the right solution for you, but we encourage you to try it and find out for sure, because it is free to try (in the USA) and money-back guaranteed all over the world, and everyone deserves a way out of pain.

If you suffer from tinnitus (ringing in the ear), and you try the SleepGuard biofeedback headband but find that your tinnitus masks the RelaxTone, we offer a one-time modification of your unit at no charge, where we lower the frequency of the RelaxTone to half of the normal frequency. This enables most people with tinnitus to hear the RelaxTone and thus benefit form using the SleepGuard biofeedback headband. If you request the modification within the 30-day money-back guarantee period, we extend the money-back guarantee period to allow you to make sure that you are able to benefit by reducing your clenching using the SleepGuard headband.

The SleepGuard biofeedback headband usually works fine for people who are on antidepressants. If you were prescribed antidepressants to help you stop clenching, you may want to know that some people clench more on antidepressants, some people clench less, and for other people antidepressants do not affect clenching.

Nerve sensations from the mouth and teeth are perceived differently by the brain during sleep. Clenching sensations that would be quite painful when a person is awake are often perceived as soothing by the brain during sleep. In sleep studies where people have been automatically awakened during clenching, they often reported having the strange realization that they were really enjoying clenching while asleep.

Unfortunately, soothing oral sensations often become addictive (for example thumb sucking for kids, or nail biting, pen chewing, or clenching for adults). Nighttime clenching is the most challenging of such addictions, not only because of the enormous damage it does, but because people need help to become subconsciously aware and interrupt the clenching when it happens.

No. The SleepGuard biofeedback headband does not put any voltage or current or EMFs into your body. Also no toxins, and no chemicals. It is designed to be your partner, and to empower you to stop habitual clenching and get out of pain.

When you chew, each chew is like a short clench, but the clenches are so short that the protective tissue around your teeth and in your jaw joint is springy and bounces back form each short clench (each chew). You can think of that protective tissue like Silly Putty, which is springy under short pulses of force, so you can bounce it on the floor.

But when you clench longer than about two seconds, the clench uses up the springiness of the protective tissue around the teeth and in the jaw joint, and that tissue begins to mash into goo (like the previously bouncy Silly Putty mashes between your fingers).

The idea of the SleepGuard biofeedback headband is to interrupt each clench before it lasts two seconds, so you don’t do any damage. For all clenches you do that last longer than two seconds, the SleepGuard headband totals the amount of time past the two-second mark. This is called your total damaging clenching time, and represents how much damage your clenching has done.

People who have no TMJ—disorder-related symptoms usually clench less than 10 seconds per night. People who experience painful TMJ-disorder-related symptoms every day usually do between 30 seconds and 300 seconds of damaging clenching each night.

There are several reasons you may not hear about the SleepGuard biofeedback headband from your dentist. The first reason is that although the SleepGuard biofeedback headband has been available for 14 years, only a few thousand dentists have seen the SleepGuard biofeedback headband at dental shows. We run this company in a non-profit mode, and having a booth at a dental show is very expensive both in time and money.  We have unfortunately discovered that for the reasons below, even when dentists have learned about the SleepGuard biofeedback headband from us or their patients, they still don’t tell people about it.

The second reason is that mouth guards are far more profitable to dentists.  In fact mouth guard manufacturers compete for dentists’ business at dental shows with signs saying things like “second most profitable thing in all of dentistry”.  Mouth guards also often require multiple office visits, custom fittings and replacements, which means even more income for the dentist.  The typical $700 price charged by a dentist for a mouth guard usually includes over $600 in profit.  Sad but true.  While MDs are legally prohibited from profiting on medical devices, dentists are not, and the current culture in dentistry is very centered on profit competition.  The SleepGuard device offers only modest financial incentives to dentists, so many dentists prefer only to tell their patients about products they make the most money on.

The third reason that many dentists don’t mention that the SleepGuard biofeedback headband does not go in your mouth, and most dentists don’t think of of it as a “dental” product. 

The forth reason is that to a dentist, stopping clenching through biofeedback is something they didn’t learn about in dental school, and the results prove incorrect many myths about TMJ disorder that many dentists have believed for years.

The SleepGuard biofeedback headband costs $395 new.  Cost to keep it running and in top condition costs about $5 per month (for new batteries every month and new sensor pads every few months, available on the maintenance section of this website).

Every time the SleepGuard headband detects that you are clenching, it makes a quiet sound.  Through a a couple of minutes practice when you are awake every day, you train a part of your subconscious to instinctively relax your jaw every time the quiet biofeedback sound is heard.  Once your subconscious is trained, it will partner with the biofeedback headband to almost totally eliminate your clenching each night, without you even having to wake up!

Some people respond very quickly, while others may see a more gradual improvement over time. Many users see results in only a few days, but most users take about 10 days to see a drastic reduction in their teeth clenching/grinding. Each morning you can check the digital display on the SleepGuard biofeedback headband and see how many times you clenched your teeth, and your total nightly damaging clenching time. This allows you to track your improvement on a daily basis.  People who train their subconscious to respond well in sleep can see an 80% reduction in total nightly damaging clenching time within a week.

Dentists recommend against interfering with tooth grinding of children, because it is a natural part of how they shape their teeth. In addition, even though the SleepGuard headband is perfectly safe for children, and children may agree to use it in order to please their parents, subconsciously they don’t want to use it, and as soon as they fall asleep they reach up and take the headband off. Since this pretty much always happens with children under the age of 16, and we don’t want children to feel they have failed their parents, we recommend against asking children to use the SleepGuard biofeedback headband.

The SleepGuard biofeedback headband can be used with any mouth guard except a front-teeth-only mouth guard like the NTI. If you want to continue using a mouth guard to protect your teeth, particularly when you first start using your SleepGuard headband, you may do so, as long as it is not a front-teeth-only mouth guard. Many people use the SleepGuard biofeedback headband instead of a mouth guard, but there is no problem using the two together.

The SleepGuard biofeedback headband may be covered by your insurance under Durable Medical Equipment (DME) code E0746 (Electromyography (EMG), Biofeedback Device).  Even though no prescription is needed to buy the SleepGuard biofeedback headband, your insurance company may require that it be prescribed by your doctor in order to be covered by your insurance.

In measured results, more than half the people who try the SleepGuard biofeedback headband are able to reduce their nighttime clenching by more than 80% in less than a month.  More than 25% of people are able to reduce their nighttime clenching by more than 90% in less than a month. 

In an on-line poll of over 1000 people, the SleepGuard biofeedback headband was rated by far the most effective treatment for enabling people to get out of TMJ-related pain — about four times as good as mouth guards on the average, and much better than Botox, drugs, and other expensive and potentially dangerous treatments.

All over the world, the SleepGuad biofeedback headband is sold on the MySleepGuard.com website and on Amazon.com. It is not sold in stores. We also have one authorized reseller in Germany, which sells through their website only in Germany.

People who have no TMJ—disorder-related symptoms usually clench less than 10 seconds per night. People who experience painful TMJ-disorder-related symptoms every day usually do between 30 seconds and 300 seconds of damaging clenching each night.

There are several reasons you may not hear about the SleepGuard biofeedback headband from your dentist. The first reason is that although the SleepGuard biofeedback headband has been available for 14 years, only a few thousand dentists have seen the SleepGuard biofeedback headband at dental shows. We run this company in a non-profit mode, and having a booth at a dental show is very expensive both in time and money.  We have unfortunately discovered that for the reasons below, even when dentists have learned about the SleepGuard biofeedback headband from us or their patients, they still don’t tell people about it.

The second reason is that mouth guards are far more profitable to dentists.  In fact mouth guard manufacturers compete for dentists’ business at dental shows with signs saying things like “second most profitable thing in all of dentistry”.  Mouth guards also often require multiple office visits, custom fittings and replacements, which means even more income for the dentist.  The typical $700 price charged by a dentist for a mouth guard usually includes over $600 in profit.  Sad but true.  While MDs are legally prohibited from profiting on medical devices, dentists are not, and the current culture in dentistry is very centered on profit competition.  The SleepGuard device offers only modest financial incentives to dentists, so many dentists prefer only to tell their patients about products they make the most money on.

The third reason that many dentists don’t mention that the SleepGuard biofeedback headband does not go in your mouth, and most dentists don’t think of of it as a “dental” product. 

The forth reason is that to a dentist, stopping clenching through biofeedback is something they didn’t learn about in dental school, and the results prove incorrect many myths about TMJ disorder that many dentists have believed for years.

You can expect your SleepGuard biofeedback headband to partner with you to reduce or eliminate your clenching.  You can expect it to reliably detect when you are clenching, and let you know, so your subconscious can respond by relaxing your jaw muscles.  If you do your daily practice to establish a part of your subconscious that will relax your jaw muscles each time the biofeedback sound is heard, you can count on the SleepGuard biofeedback headband to partner with you to eliminate pain and other TMJ disorder symptoms, by stopping the damage that habitual clenching had been causing every night, and allowing your body to heal.

You can also expect a comfortable, reliable, long-lasting, easy to maintain, easy to use,  hypoallergenic, non-invasive, safe device — that with proper use– signals you via biofeedback to stop clenching or grinding your teeth.  When you partner with SleepGuard to reduce your clenching, you can expect most or all of your pain or discomfort symptoms from clenching to be greatly reduced or to go away entirely.   This includes headaches, TMJ pain, migraines, sinus pain, ear pain, jaw pain, and neck pain.  In short, if you partner with SleepGuard, you can expect relief from the pain and much of the damage of TMJ disorder and bruxism, and you can expect your life to change for the better in many ways.

Just like any other habit (like over-eating or smoking or drinking or nail biting), the habit of nighttime clenching can be modified over time.  While the neural pathways in the brain that make up the habit will never be gone, they can be ignored by your brain if you develop new pathways that are stronger than the old ones.  How long it takes to modify a habit and how lastingly a habit stays modified depends on many factors in a person’s conscious and subconscious mind, and on many other brain factors that are different for every individual.  In the best cases we know of, people reduce their clenching by 95% in three days and have been able to totally eradicate the clenching habit in about six months.  In other cases, a person who has kept clenching to a very low level for a year takes a break from using the headband, and their clenching habit grows back enough to give them pain again within a month.

Even for people who wind up using the headband long-term, it is much better to be treating the cause (clenching) of the TMJ symptoms rather than only treating the symptoms, because treating the cause prevents further damage, while only treating the symptoms allows more and more damage to accumulate.

Every time the SleepGuard headband detects that you are clenching, it makes a quiet sound.  Through a a couple of minutes practice when you are awake every day, you train a part of your subconscious to instinctively relax your jaw every time the quiet biofeedback sound is heard.  Once your subconscious is trained, it will partner with the biofeedback headband to almost totally eliminate your clenching each night, without you even having to wake up!

The biofeedback sound generator (which touches the forehead) is stainless steel.  The headband is cotton terrycloth on the outside, and a polyester blend on the inside, with a half-inch wide adjustable elastic strap.

For the vast majority of people, stainless steel is considered hypoallergenic. In rare cases, people may experience an allergic reaction to stainless steel after they have had piercings in their body. Only about one in 1000 customers have a problem with the stainless steel, and that problem can be solved by putting plastic tape over the stainless steel if needed.

The sensor pads (which touch the temples and forehead) are carbon-loaded silicone rubber.  Both silicone rubber and carbon are completely hypoallergenic.

Yes. Many people also clench or grind unconsciously during the day (for example, when they are driving or at work), so it can be beneficial to wear the biofeedback headband during those times as well.

Some users report that using the SleepGuard biofeedback headband allows them to train themselves to stop clenching for periods of time. We recommend that users wear the SleepGuard biofeedback headband each night for at least two months, to allow healing to take place. Once you’ve reduced your clenching, you may choose to use your SleepGuard biofeedback headband less frequently.

The SleepGuard biofeedback headband can be used with any mouth guard except a front-teeth-only mouth guard like the NTI. If you want to continue using a mouth guard to protect your teeth, particularly when you first start using your SleepGuard headband, you may do so, as long as it is not a front-teeth-only mouth guard. Many people use the SleepGuard biofeedback headband instead of a mouth guard, but there is no problem using the two together.

Most users don’t report any problems with disturbing their partners. Even in the rare instance when partners do hear sound from the SleepGuard headband, it’s far less disturbing than the old sound of grinding teeth! SleepGuard’s RelaxTone biofeedback is designed to be as quiet and confidential as possible, with volume control for a perfect balance to allow you and your partner to sleep soundly.

As long as you have done the recommended daytime practice so that you have trained a part of your subconscious mind to relax your jaw when the biofeedback sound is heard, you will be able to respond in your sleep without waking up.

The RelaxTone™ biofeedback only happens when you start clenching and stops when you stop. Once your grinding/clenching stops, it becomes easier for your body to enter REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep, and once you reach REM sleep, all clenching and grinding stops. For these reasons, many users report better sleep with the SleepGuard biofeedback headband than without!

Although our customers have succeeded in getting reimbursed for their SleepGuard units from every private insurance company we have heard about, we are not yet covered by Medicare. We have applied multiple times, but each time our application was “lost” by tone of the gateway companies that decide whether a manufacturer will get listed in the Medicare system. One company that handles applications to Medicare offered to help “find” our application if we paid them a “consulting fee”. Since our company runs in a non-profit mode to help counteract financial corruption in the healthcare system, we chose not to pay this “consulting fee”.

The SleepGuard biofeedback headband may be covered by your insurance under Durable Medical Equipment (DME) code E0746 (Electromyography (EMG), Biofeedback Device).  Even though no prescription is needed to buy the SleepGuard biofeedback headband, your insurance company may require that it be prescribed by your doctor in order to be covered by your insurance.

Batteries cost about $2 per month if you buy them on this website (or about twice as much if you buy them in stores like CVS or Wal-Mart or Radio Shack). Sensor pads get depleted and need to be replaced typically every three to six months (depending on your skin chemistry), and cost $9.95 per set on this website. The fabric part of the headband can be laundered, and you might want to replace it every year for $9.95. Thus the total cost of care and maintenance is usually less than $5 per month.

If your unit is under warranty, call or e-mail for a Repair Authorization Number (RMA number), and send us your unit with that number written on a slip of paper in the package. If your unit is out of warranty, you can order an inexpensive refurbishment here.

Most people who take sleep medication discover that their subconscious can learn to respond during sleep without a problem if they do the daytime training as recommended. Since the SleepGuard unit is free to try (in the USA), and money-back guaranteed all over the world, we recommend you try it, because everyone deserves a way out of pain.

The SleepGuard biofeedback headband usually works fine for people who are on antidepressants. If you were prescribed antidepressants to help you stop clenching, you may want to know that some people clench more on antidepressants, some people clench less, and for other people antidepressants do not affect clenching.

Yes, and hopefully you will be able to get off those muscle relaxers soon when you partner with SleepGuard to reduce your nighttime clenching.

Neck pain is often results from a cascade of muscle spasms that start with clenching muscles going into spasm, and then nearby muscles tightening to protect those muscles, and then those nearby muscles also go into spasm. Thus the spasms propagate from one muscle to the next. The clenching muscles will usually come out of spasm within a few days of significantly reducing nighttime clenching time. In some cases the entire chain of muscle spasms relaxes soon after, but in some cases some intervening muscle spasms may remain “stuck”. In such a case, it may be helpful to get a massage about a week after nightly clenching time has been significantly reduced.

Jaw pain usually starts to subside within a week of a significant reduction in nighttime clenching (such as a 75% reduction), and often goes away entirely over time if nightly damaging clenching time is reduced to less than 10 seconds per night.

Headaches related to nighttime clenching usually start to subside within one week of significantly reducing your nightly clenching time, and continue to subside as any tooth pain, jaw pain, and clenching muscle pain reduce over time.

Migraines which are enabled by nighttime clenching usually start to subside within one week of significantly reducing your nightly clenching time, and continue to subside as any tooth pain, jaw pain, and clenching muscle pain reduce over time.

Sleep apnea is the repetitive stopping of breathing, followed by an emergency response which is usually heard as gasping, throughout sleep.  The most common form of sleep apnea is obstructive sleep apnea, where a portion of the breathing airway closes off partly or completely.  Such repeated experienced of “I can’t breathe” during sleep put the body under stress, and clenching and grinding is one of the common responses to such stress.

Unfortunately, if the clenching/grinding (bruxism) has become a habit over time, even if a person gets a CPAP machine or a jaw-repositioning appliance (the two most common treatments for sleep apnea), the clenching and grinding habit usually continues even after the apnea is treated.

Many people who prefer a jaw-repositioning appliance to treat sleep apnea, because the jaw-repositioning device changes the shape of the breathing airway and prevents the apnea events, rather than just detecting them and forcing breathing as a CPAP machine does).  Unfortunately, the jaw-repositioning devices put stress on ligaments and muscles, and often cause even more clenching and grinding.

Fortunately, the SleepGuard biofeedback headband can be used with either a CPAP machine or a jaw-repositioning device, so you can have the best of both worlds (freedom from sleep apnea and freedom from clenching and grinding).

As long as the mask you use with your CPAP machine does not have a support that takes up room on your forehead (where the SleepGuard biofeedback headband needs to sit) you can use the SleepGuard headband with you CPAP machine. The most popular CPAP masks these days are quite small, and the SleepGuard headband can be used fine with those CPAP masks.

Some people who sleep very deeply fear that they will not be able to train their subconscious mind to relax their response to the RelaxTone biofeedback sound, but most people who sleep very deeply discover that their subconscious can learn to respond during sleep without a problem if they do the daytime training as recommended. Since the SleepGuard unit is free to try (in the USA), and money-back guaranteed all over the world, we recommend you try it, because everyone deserves a way out of pain.

If you are a very light sleeper it is possible that the SleepGuard biofeedback headband is not the right solution for you, but we encourage you to try it and find out for sure, because it is free to try (in the USA) and money-back guaranteed all over the world, and everyone deserves a way out of pain.

If you suffer from tinnitus (ringing in the ear), and you try the SleepGuard biofeedback headband but find that your tinnitus masks the RelaxTone, we offer a one-time modification of your unit at no charge, where we lower the frequency of the RelaxTone to half of the normal frequency. This enables most people with tinnitus to hear the RelaxTone and thus benefit form using the SleepGuard biofeedback headband. If you request the modification within the 30-day money-back guarantee period, we extend the money-back guarantee period to allow you to make sure that you are able to benefit by reducing your clenching using the SleepGuard headband.

If you have hearing loss at certain frequencies and find you cannot hear the RelaxTone well, we offer a one-time modification of your unit at no charge, where we lower the frequency of the RelaxTone to half of the normal frequency. This enables most people with selective-frequency hearing loss to hear the RelaxTone and thus benefit form using the SleepGuard biofeedback headband. If you request the modification within the 30-day money-back guarantee period, we extend the money-back guarantee period to allow you to make sure that you are able to benefit by reducing your clenching using the SleepGuard headband.

Neck pain is often results from a cascade of muscle spasms that start with clenching muscles going into spasm, and then nearby muscles tightening to protect those muscles, and then those nearby muscles also go into spasm. Thus the spasms propagate from one muscle to the next. The clenching muscles will usually come out of spasm within a few days of significantly reducing nighttime clenching time. In some cases the entire chain of muscle spasms relaxes soon after, but in some cases some intervening muscle spasms may remain “stuck”. In such a case, it may be helpful to get a massage about a week after nightly clenching time has been significantly reduced.

Jaw pain usually starts to subside within a week of a significant reduction in nighttime clenching (such as a 75% reduction), and often goes away entirely over time if nightly damaging clenching time is reduced to less than 10 seconds per night.

Headaches related to nighttime clenching usually start to subside within one week of significantly reducing your nightly clenching time, and continue to subside as any tooth pain, jaw pain, and clenching muscle pain reduce over time.

Migraines which are enabled by nighttime clenching usually start to subside within one week of significantly reducing your nightly clenching time, and continue to subside as any tooth pain, jaw pain, and clenching muscle pain reduce over time.

Most people who take sleep medication discover that their subconscious can learn to respond during sleep without a problem if they do the daytime training as recommended. Since the SleepGuard unit is free to try (in the USA), and money-back guaranteed all over the world, we recommend you try it, because everyone deserves a way out of pain.

The SleepGuard biofeedback headband usually works fine for people who are on antidepressants. If you were prescribed antidepressants to help you stop clenching, you may want to know that some people clench more on antidepressants, some people clench less, and for other people antidepressants do not affect clenching.

Yes, and hopefully you will be able to get off those muscle relaxers soon when you partner with SleepGuard to reduce your nighttime clenching.

Nerve sensations from the mouth and teeth are perceived differently by the brain during sleep. Clenching sensations that would be quite painful when a person is awake are often perceived as soothing by the brain during sleep. In sleep studies where people have been automatically awakened during clenching, they often reported having the strange realization that they were really enjoying clenching while asleep.

Unfortunately, soothing oral sensations often become addictive (for example thumb sucking for kids, or nail biting, pen chewing, or clenching for adults). Nighttime clenching is the most challenging of such addictions, not only because of the enormous damage it does, but because people need help to become subconsciously aware and interrupt the clenching when it happens.

Many people who suffer TMJ-disorder-related symptoms (like migraines, ear pain, neck pain, or sinus pain) think they don’t clench or have been told by their dentist “you don’t brux”, but discover through a sleep study or the use of a SleepGuard unit that they actually clench quite a bit in their sleep. Clenching often leaves signs that an untrained person would realize come from clenching. For instance, most people have no idea that many morning neck aches come from propagating muscle spasms that start with clenching.

When you chew, each chew is like a short clench, but the clenches are so short that the protective tissue around your teeth and in your jaw joint is springy and bounces back form each short clench (each chew). You can think of that protective tissue like Silly Putty, which is springy under short pulses of force, so you can bounce it on the floor.

But when you clench longer than about two seconds, the clench uses up the springiness of the protective tissue around the teeth and in the jaw joint, and that tissue begins to mash into goo (like the previously bouncy Silly Putty mashes between your fingers).

The idea of the SleepGuard biofeedback headband is to interrupt each clench before it lasts two seconds, so you don’t do any damage. For all clenches you do that last longer than two seconds, the SleepGuard headband totals the amount of time past the two-second mark. This is called your total damaging clenching time, and represents how much damage your clenching has done.

People who have no TMJ—disorder-related symptoms usually clench less than 10 seconds per night. People who experience painful TMJ-disorder-related symptoms every day usually do between 30 seconds and 300 seconds of damaging clenching each night.

Some people respond very quickly, while others may see a more gradual improvement over time. Many users see results in only a few days, but most users take about 10 days to see a drastic reduction in their teeth clenching/grinding. Each morning you can check the digital display on the SleepGuard biofeedback headband and see how many times you clenched your teeth, and your total nightly damaging clenching time. This allows you to track your improvement on a daily basis.  People who train their subconscious to respond well in sleep can see an 80% reduction in total nightly damaging clenching time within a week.

Dentists recommend against interfering with tooth grinding of children, because it is a natural part of how they shape their teeth. In addition, even though the SleepGuard headband is perfectly safe for children, and children may agree to use it in order to please their parents, subconsciously they don’t want to use it, and as soon as they fall asleep they reach up and take the headband off. Since this pretty much always happens with children under the age of 16, and we don’t want children to feel they have failed their parents, we recommend against asking children to use the SleepGuard biofeedback headband.

The SleepGuard biofeedback headband may be covered by your insurance under Durable Medical Equipment (DME) code E0746 (Electromyography (EMG), Biofeedback Device).  Even though no prescription is needed to buy the SleepGuard biofeedback headband, your insurance company may require that it be prescribed by your doctor in order to be covered by your insurance.

In measured results, more than half the people who try the SleepGuard biofeedback headband are able to reduce their nighttime clenching by more than 80% in less than a month.  More than 25% of people are able to reduce their nighttime clenching by more than 90% in less than a month. 

In an on-line poll of over 1000 people, the SleepGuard biofeedback headband was rated by far the most effective treatment for enabling people to get out of TMJ-related pain — about four times as good as mouth guards on the average, and much better than Botox, drugs, and other expensive and potentially dangerous treatments.

No, the SleepGuard biofeedback headband is FDA-cleared for non-prescription use for muscle re-education (re-educating your clenching muscles out of habitual use).

Yes, the headband comes with two sets of CR2032 lithium 3V coin cell batteries.  That’s a two-month supply of batteries.  To help keep your battery costs low, we sell batteries on this website at less than half the prices stores like CVS and Wal-Mart charge.

The headband uses CR2032 lithium coin cell batteries, which can usually be purchased at any local drug store, Radio Shack, Wal-Mart, etc.. You can also buy batteries for only $1 each (which is usually cheaper than stores) here on this website.

Batteries last for roughly 320 hours of use, or about 40 nights with 8 hours of use each night.

If you suffer from tinnitus (ringing in the ear), and you try the SleepGuard biofeedback headband but find that your tinnitus masks the RelaxTone, we offer a one-time modification of your unit at no charge, where we lower the frequency of the RelaxTone to half of the normal frequency. This enables most people with tinnitus to hear the RelaxTone and thus benefit form using the SleepGuard biofeedback headband. If you request the modification within the 30-day money-back guarantee period, we extend the money-back guarantee period to allow you to make sure that you are able to benefit by reducing your clenching using the SleepGuard headband.

Neck pain is often results from a cascade of muscle spasms that start with clenching muscles going into spasm, and then nearby muscles tightening to protect those muscles, and then those nearby muscles also go into spasm. Thus the spasms propagate from one muscle to the next. The clenching muscles will usually come out of spasm within a few days of significantly reducing nighttime clenching time. In some cases the entire chain of muscle spasms relaxes soon after, but in some cases some intervening muscle spasms may remain “stuck”. In such a case, it may be helpful to get a massage about a week after nightly clenching time has been significantly reduced.

Jaw pain usually starts to subside within a week of a significant reduction in nighttime clenching (such as a 75% reduction), and often goes away entirely over time if nightly damaging clenching time is reduced to less than 10 seconds per night.

Headaches related to nighttime clenching usually start to subside within one week of significantly reducing your nightly clenching time, and continue to subside as any tooth pain, jaw pain, and clenching muscle pain reduce over time.

Migraines which are enabled by nighttime clenching usually start to subside within one week of significantly reducing your nightly clenching time, and continue to subside as any tooth pain, jaw pain, and clenching muscle pain reduce over time.

Nerve sensations from the mouth and teeth are perceived differently by the brain during sleep. Clenching sensations that would be quite painful when a person is awake are often perceived as soothing by the brain during sleep. In sleep studies where people have been automatically awakened during clenching, they often reported having the strange realization that they were really enjoying clenching while asleep.

Unfortunately, soothing oral sensations often become addictive (for example thumb sucking for kids, or nail biting, pen chewing, or clenching for adults). Nighttime clenching is the most challenging of such addictions, not only because of the enormous damage it does, but because people need help to become subconsciously aware and interrupt the clenching when it happens.

When you chew, each chew is like a short clench, but the clenches are so short that the protective tissue around your teeth and in your jaw joint is springy and bounces back form each short clench (each chew). You can think of that protective tissue like Silly Putty, which is springy under short pulses of force, so you can bounce it on the floor.

But when you clench longer than about two seconds, the clench uses up the springiness of the protective tissue around the teeth and in the jaw joint, and that tissue begins to mash into goo (like the previously bouncy Silly Putty mashes between your fingers).

The idea of the SleepGuard biofeedback headband is to interrupt each clench before it lasts two seconds, so you don’t do any damage. For all clenches you do that last longer than two seconds, the SleepGuard headband totals the amount of time past the two-second mark. This is called your total damaging clenching time, and represents how much damage your clenching has done.

Nerve sensations from the mouth and teeth are perceived differently by the brain during sleep. Clenching sensations that would be quite painful when a person is awake are often perceived as soothing by the brain during sleep. In sleep studies where people have been automatically awakened during clenching, they often reported having the strange realization that they were really enjoying clenching while asleep.

Unfortunately, soothing oral sensations often become addictive (for example thumb sucking for kids, or nail biting, pen chewing, or clenching for adults). Nighttime clenching is the most challenging of such addictions, not only because of the enormous damage it does, but because people need help to become subconsciously aware and interrupt the clenching when it happens.

Bruxism is the word dentists generally use to refer to all forms of rhythmic clenching and grinding of teeth. Some dentists also include prolonged clenching (such as leads to migraines) in their definition of bruxism, and some dentists do not. Bruxism often takes place unconsciously while awake or asleep, and is more common with people who are under stress. For people who primarily grind their teeth, the damage will often be visible to dentists. For people who primarily clench, pain may be experienced in the form of sore or sensitive teeth, jaw ache, facial muscle or nerve pain, migraines, headaches, dizziness, neck pain, back pain, and muscle spasms of the face, neck, and back. Bruxism during sleep also often causes decreased/impaired REM sleep (the time of sleep when muscles rejuvenate).

Bruxism (teeth clenching and/or grinding) is a habit, not a disease.  Like any other habit (for instance smoking, over-eating, drinking, nail biting, etc.), the habit of bruxism can be modified, but it does not make sense to think in therms of “curing” a habit.  A habit is made up of neural pathways in the brain that have been learned over time.  The key to modifying any habit is building awareness and changing a behavior pattern, so a new habit (new neural pathways) can take over from the old habit (old neural pathways).  Bruxism can be a very challenging habit, because it often occurs during sleep.  The SleepGuard biofeedback headband allows you to build subconscious awareness of when the bruxism habit is active during sleep, allowing you to build up a part of your subconscious that will help you change the habit.

More than 90% of the time, the symptoms labeled “TMJ disorder” come from habitual nighttime teeth clenching, so 90% of the time those painful symptoms (facial pain, jaw pain, headaches, migraines, ear and sinus pain, neck pain, etc.) are not a disease, but the result of a habit that happens during sleep. 

Like any other habit (for instance smoking, over-eating, drinking, nail biting, etc.), the habit of nighttime clenching can be modified, but it does not make sense to think in therms of “curing” a habit.  The key to modifying any habit is building awareness and changing a behavior pattern.  Nighttime clenching can be a very challenging habit, because it often occurs during sleep.  The SleepGuard biofeedback headband allows you to build subconscious awareness of when you are clenching during, sleep, allowing you to build up a part of your subconscious that will enable you to change the habit.

The SleepGuard biofeedback headband costs $395 new.  Cost to keep it running and in top condition costs about $5 per month (for new batteries every month and new sensor pads every few months, available on the maintenance section of this website).

The SleepGuard biofeedback headband may be covered by your insurance under Durable Medical Equipment (DME) code E0746 (Electromyography (EMG), Biofeedback Device).  Even though no prescription is needed to buy the SleepGuard biofeedback headband, your insurance company may require that it be prescribed by your doctor in order to be covered by your insurance.

If you run into a challenge and we are working with you to overcome that challenge, we will be happy to extend your money-back guarantee time to give you time to work through any challenges.

We usually refurbish and ship within two days of receiving a unit.  Return shipping time depends on the shipping method you choose in your refurbishment order.  Shipping time inside the US using Priority Mail is 2 or 3 postal days.

Shipping time from the US to most countries using International Express Mail (the most economical shipping we offer, except to Canada, where the most economical shipping is UPS Standard to Canada) is typically less than one week. Shipping time using UPS Expedited (which costs more than twice as much) is typically less than four days. Shipping time from you to us depends on what shipping service you use.

If your unit is under warranty, call or e-mail for a Repair Authorization Number (RMA number), and send us your unit with that number written on a slip of paper in the package. If your unit is out of warranty, you can order an inexpensive refurbishment here.

New SleepGuard biofeedback headbands are warrantied to be free from manufacturing defects for a period of one year from the date of purchase, and refurbished SleepGuard biofeedback headbands are warrantied to be free from manufacturing defects for a period of 90 days from the date of purchase.

During the free trial period or the money-back guarantee period, call us or contact us here for a Return Authorization Number and send your unit (at your expense) to:

SleepGuard
71 Forest St.
Milton, MA 02186

Please write the Return Authorization Number you receive on a slip of paper, and include that slip of paper in the package when you return your unit.

The money-back guarantee period starts the day your unit is delivered.

You can expect your SleepGuard biofeedback headband to partner with you to reduce or eliminate your clenching.  You can expect it to reliably detect when you are clenching, and let you know, so your subconscious can respond by relaxing your jaw muscles.  If you do your daily practice to establish a part of your subconscious that will relax your jaw muscles each time the biofeedback sound is heard, you can count on the SleepGuard biofeedback headband to partner with you to eliminate pain and other TMJ disorder symptoms, by stopping the damage that habitual clenching had been causing every night, and allowing your body to heal.

You can also expect a comfortable, reliable, long-lasting, easy to maintain, easy to use,  hypoallergenic, non-invasive, safe device — that with proper use– signals you via biofeedback to stop clenching or grinding your teeth.  When you partner with SleepGuard to reduce your clenching, you can expect most or all of your pain or discomfort symptoms from clenching to be greatly reduced or to go away entirely.   This includes headaches, TMJ pain, migraines, sinus pain, ear pain, jaw pain, and neck pain.  In short, if you partner with SleepGuard, you can expect relief from the pain and much of the damage of TMJ disorder and bruxism, and you can expect your life to change for the better in many ways.

Every time the SleepGuard headband detects that you are clenching, it makes a quiet sound.  Through a a couple of minutes practice when you are awake every day, you train a part of your subconscious to instinctively relax your jaw every time the quiet biofeedback sound is heard.  Once your subconscious is trained, it will partner with the biofeedback headband to almost totally eliminate your clenching each night, without you even having to wake up!

The unit’s comfortable adjustable headband is designed to work on the full range of adult head sizes.

If you are in the small percentage of people who clench or grind only their front teeth, the SleepGuard headband will not properly sense this unless you also use a mouth guard that transfers clenching force to your back teeth.  Front-teeth clenching uses muscles that are inside the jaw bone next to the tongue, so the headband can’t sense the signals from those muscles because there is bone in the way.  For this same reason, the SleepGuard headband won’t sense clenching if used in combination with front-teeth-only mouth guards like the NTI, but it works fine in combination with regular mouth guards that transfer some force to back teeth.

In measured results, more than half the people who try the SleepGuard biofeedback headband are able to reduce their nighttime clenching by more than 80% in less than a month.  More than 25% of people are able to reduce their nighttime clenching by more than 90% in less than a month. 

In an on-line poll of over 1000 people, the SleepGuard biofeedback headband was rated by far the most effective treatment for enabling people to get out of TMJ-related pain — about four times as good as mouth guards on the average, and much better than Botox, drugs, and other expensive and potentially dangerous treatments.

Used properly, the SleepGuard biofeedback headband is safer than a mouth guard in several ways.  The SleepGuard unit is not toxic, whereas many dentist-made mouth guards are thousands as times as toxic as the plastic water bottles that created such a scare in the news.  Over-the-counter mouth guards are far less toxic than most dentist-made mouth guards, but still mildly toxic in many cases.

Because many people clench more and harder when they use a mouth guard, using a mouth guard can make many TMJ symptoms worse, including migraines, nerve damage, jaw clicking and popping, headaches, jaw pain, and neck pain, to name a few, whereas reducing clenching with a SleepGuard biofeedback headband can relieve all those symptoms.

The only thing mouth guards are better at is preventing tooth enamel wear, so if you know you grind as well as clench, you can always use a mouth guard as well as the SleepGuard unit if you want extra protection against tooth enamel wear.

The SleepGuard biofeedback headband is effective for about five times as many people compared to mouth guards in reducing or eliminating pain.  If your only symptom is tooth enamel wear from grinding, and you don’t have any pain or discomfort, then a mouth guard is more effective and preventing further tooth enamel wear.

There are several reasons you may not hear about the SleepGuard biofeedback headband from your dentist. The first reason is that although the SleepGuard biofeedback headband has been available for 14 years, only a few thousand dentists have seen the SleepGuard biofeedback headband at dental shows. We run this company in a non-profit mode, and having a booth at a dental show is very expensive both in time and money.  We have unfortunately discovered that for the reasons below, even when dentists have learned about the SleepGuard biofeedback headband from us or their patients, they still don’t tell people about it.

The second reason is that mouth guards are far more profitable to dentists.  In fact mouth guard manufacturers compete for dentists’ business at dental shows with signs saying things like “second most profitable thing in all of dentistry”.  Mouth guards also often require multiple office visits, custom fittings and replacements, which means even more income for the dentist.  The typical $700 price charged by a dentist for a mouth guard usually includes over $600 in profit.  Sad but true.  While MDs are legally prohibited from profiting on medical devices, dentists are not, and the current culture in dentistry is very centered on profit competition.  The SleepGuard device offers only modest financial incentives to dentists, so many dentists prefer only to tell their patients about products they make the most money on.

The third reason that many dentists don’t mention that the SleepGuard biofeedback headband does not go in your mouth, and most dentists don’t think of of it as a “dental” product. 

The forth reason is that to a dentist, stopping clenching through biofeedback is something they didn’t learn about in dental school, and the results prove incorrect many myths about TMJ disorder that many dentists have believed for years.

The SleepGuard biofeedback headband can be used with any mouth guard except a front-teeth-only mouth guard like the NTI. If you want to continue using a mouth guard to protect your teeth, particularly when you first start using your SleepGuard headband, you may do so, as long as it is not a front-teeth-only mouth guard. Many people use the SleepGuard biofeedback headband instead of a mouth guard, but there is no problem using the two together.

The SleepGuard biofeedback headband may be covered by your insurance under Durable Medical Equipment (DME) code E0746 (Electromyography (EMG), Biofeedback Device).  Even though no prescription is needed to buy the SleepGuard biofeedback headband, your insurance company may require that it be prescribed by your doctor in order to be covered by your insurance.

The SleepGuard biofeedback headband is FDA-approved.  Dentist-made mouth guards are not FDA-approved because the FDA is forbidden from “interfering with the practice of medicine”, so dentists can and often do make mouth guards out of materials considered too toxic for FDA-regulated products.  Over-the-counter mouth guards are FDA-approved and much less toxic than typical dentist-made mouth guards.

If you suffer from tinnitus (ringing in the ear), and you try the SleepGuard biofeedback headband but find that your tinnitus masks the RelaxTone, we offer a one-time modification of your unit at no charge, where we lower the frequency of the RelaxTone to half of the normal frequency. This enables most people with tinnitus to hear the RelaxTone and thus benefit form using the SleepGuard biofeedback headband. If you request the modification within the 30-day money-back guarantee period, we extend the money-back guarantee period to allow you to make sure that you are able to benefit by reducing your clenching using the SleepGuard headband.

If you have hearing loss at certain frequencies and find you cannot hear the RelaxTone well, we offer a one-time modification of your unit at no charge, where we lower the frequency of the RelaxTone to half of the normal frequency. This enables most people with selective-frequency hearing loss to hear the RelaxTone and thus benefit form using the SleepGuard biofeedback headband. If you request the modification within the 30-day money-back guarantee period, we extend the money-back guarantee period to allow you to make sure that you are able to benefit by reducing your clenching using the SleepGuard headband.

No. The SleepGuard biofeedback headband does not put any voltage or current or EMFs into your body. Also no toxins, and no chemicals. It is designed to be your partner, and to empower you to stop habitual clenching and get out of pain.

Yes. While dentist-made mouth guards are exempt form FDA regulation and are often quite toxic, SleepGuard meets and exceeds the FDA standards designed to ensure your safety. 

Dentists recommend against interfering with tooth grinding of children, because it is a natural part of how they shape their teeth. In addition, even though the SleepGuard headband is perfectly safe for children, and children may agree to use it in order to please their parents, subconsciously they don’t want to use it, and as soon as they fall asleep they reach up and take the headband off. Since this pretty much always happens with children under the age of 16, and we don’t want children to feel they have failed their parents, we recommend against asking children to use the SleepGuard biofeedback headband.

The biofeedback sound generator (which touches the forehead) is stainless steel.  The headband is cotton terrycloth on the outside, and a polyester blend on the inside, with a half-inch wide adjustable elastic strap.

For the vast majority of people, stainless steel is considered hypoallergenic. In rare cases, people may experience an allergic reaction to stainless steel after they have had piercings in their body. Only about one in 1000 customers have a problem with the stainless steel, and that problem can be solved by putting plastic tape over the stainless steel if needed.

The sensor pads (which touch the temples and forehead) are carbon-loaded silicone rubber.  Both silicone rubber and carbon are completely hypoallergenic.

No.  The materials that make up the SleepGuard headband were specifically selected because they will not react with your skin.  However, if your skin is prone to acne, you may get more acne in the area of the sensor pads because your skin will be slightly more moist there. Acne under the sensor pads can be prevented by washing skin with an acne-preventative like Clearasil, and lightly cleaning the sensor pads with alcohol before putting on the headband.

Yes, the headband has no known side effects and is 100% safe. The gentle RelaxTone™ biofeedback helps guide your brain to eliminate subconscious clenching. The SleepGuard biofeedback headband does not put any electrical signals, magnetic fields, or EMFs into the body, and it is electromagnetically shielded so it gives off no electromagnetic fields. The device is also registered and approved by the FDA.

The SleepGuard headband (including the electronic module and batteries) weighs less than two ounces.

The unit’s comfortable adjustable headband is designed to work on the full range of adult head sizes.

The biofeedback sound generator (which touches the forehead) is stainless steel.  The headband is cotton terrycloth on the outside, and a polyester blend on the inside, with a half-inch wide adjustable elastic strap.

For the vast majority of people, stainless steel is considered hypoallergenic. In rare cases, people may experience an allergic reaction to stainless steel after they have had piercings in their body. Only about one in 1000 customers have a problem with the stainless steel, and that problem can be solved by putting plastic tape over the stainless steel if needed.

The sensor pads (which touch the temples and forehead) are carbon-loaded silicone rubber.  Both silicone rubber and carbon are completely hypoallergenic.

No.  The materials that make up the SleepGuard headband were specifically selected because they will not react with your skin.  However, if your skin is prone to acne, you may get more acne in the area of the sensor pads because your skin will be slightly more moist there. Acne under the sensor pads can be prevented by washing skin with an acne-preventative like Clearasil, and lightly cleaning the sensor pads with alcohol before putting on the headband.

The fabric part of the headband is cotton terrycloth on the outside, and a polyester blend on the inside, with a half-inch wide adjustable elastic strap.