Q: Though teeth grinding (also known as bruxism) does not necessarily have one single cause, doctors have identified several factors that can lead to teeth grinding during the day or at night, including:  Ear pain  Incoming teeth in children  Unpleasant emotions (stress, frustration, anger, anxiety)  Certain personality types (hyper-competitive, hyper-aggressive)  A compulsive habit, often used to focus or cope with stressful situations  Misaligned upper and lower teeth (called a malocclusion)  Sleep-related complications, including sleep apnea  Complications caused by certain degenerative disorders, including Huntington's disease and Parkinson's disease If chronic teeth grinding is causing you severe jaw pain, you may want to consult your dentist on strategies you can take to prevent grinding, or at least reduce the side effects caused by bruxism.  Use a mouth guard. This is especially useful if you experience bruxism at night. Wearing a mouth guard designed to prevent bruxism can help keep your upper and lower teeth separated and reduce the pain and damage caused by grinding.  Correct your tooth alignment. In extreme cases of bruxism, your doctor may recommend wearing braces to realign your upper and lower rows of teeth, or having oral surgery to reshape the contours of your teeth.  Have regular dental exams. Allowing your dentist to monitor and treat your teeth-grinding habits can help reduce the frequency of bruxism and reduce jaw pain. If extreme emotions or behavioral complications are causing the bruxism that has lead to severe jaw pain, you may want to consider ways of treating the emotional or behavioral causes.  Try stress-management exercises like meditation or rigorous exercise.  Try therapy to address issues like anxiety, anger, or stress. In extreme cases, medication may be recommended. Medication is not the preferred treatment for bruxism, but certain prescriptions, such as muscle relaxers, may help ease the tension and treat the pain. If the bruxism causing your jaw pain is related to stress or anxiety, making lifestyle changes could help reduce the incidence of teeth grinding and help prevent pain in the future.  Try to manage stress. Find what calms you down, whether it's listening to relaxing music, having a vigorous workout, or a calming soak in the tub. Practice your stress-relieving activity every day, especially before bed.  Avoid caffeine and other stimulants. Try drinking decaffeinated coffee or tea, or for best results, drink a relaxing herbal tea in the evening. Avoid tobacco and alcohol in the evening to promote a more restful night's sleep with lower incidences of bruxism.
A: Understand what causes teeth grinding. Treat your teeth. Treat the underlying cause of bruxism. Make lifestyle changes.

Q: Consider adding someone's name or a personalized message onto the bunting. This is a great detail to add if you are using your bunting for a holiday or celebration. If you want a minimalistic look or if you chose a paper with a fun pattern and don't want to cover it up, hang the bunting as is.
A: Decorate the flags with letters and shapes to further personalize it.

Q: Many sources of relationship tension can be addressed by better communication.  Improved communication starts with honesty.  When the opportunity to speak with your wife presents itself, be ready to share the things you feel strongly about, both good and bad.  Be particularly honest about the things you believe were detrimental to your marriage before the distance grew between you. Be sure to include both the reasons you want to win her back, and the reasons you believe your relationship can be a source of healthy, shared happiness for both of you. Don’t avoid any conversations that need to happen.  Don’t deny or ignore any past detrimental behavior – either your own or your wife’s. It may initially seem silly, but it can be incredibly helpful to literally make a list of the good, the bad – and even the ugly.   Organize your own thoughts, and prepare yourself to clearly share them with your wife by getting them out on paper. Make specific lists of the things you love about your wife and your relationship with her. Also list the things that frustrated you about your previous lives together. If you’re still speaking, and she may be willing to do so, ask her to do the same and share the lists with one another.  This will likely lead to some serious, but important conversations. If you actually want to win your wife back and have a healthy relationship together, you’ll both need for forgive one another for those aspects of your past that led to the distance between you.    Improved communication – and the honesty it leads to – will necessitate that you both accept responsibility for ways you may have hurt each other in the past. Whether your wife has done and said things that have hurt you, or has been holding onto things you’ve done that hurt her – work to reconcile past wrongs by speaking about them together. In the event your wife has consistently mistreated you, you need to strongly consider why you want to get back together. Your current separation might indicate a good reason for some distance between you and your wife.  If the separation has been longstanding, or if your divorce has already been completed, this is all the more indication that there were serious issues with your relationship.   It is incredibly hard to deal with separation, particularly when you aren’t ready to let go.  However, you may simply need to do so. Speak with close friends and family members about how you’re feeling.  They will remind you that you are loved (likely without even saying it), and help you work through the emotional turmoil of separation.
A: Commit to open, honest, and heartfelt dialogue. List specific strengths and things to work on in your relationship together. Forgive, apologize, and try to forget. Be honest with yourself, too.

Q: Don’t do anything you wouldn’t ordinarily do to your hair for a passport photo.  Passport photos should be a good representation of what you usually look like so that you don’t get detained. Do not wear a hat or any other head covering unless you already do so on a daily basis for religious purposes. If you do wear a head covering, for a U.S. passport, your face has to be visible. The covering can’t hide your hairline or cast shadows over any part of your face. If you usually wear makeup, go ahead and put it on as usual. If you never wear makeup, you probably don’t want to put on a ton of it for the photo. You won’t look like yourself, and you could get detained.  Wear a little oil-absorbing powder to prevent shine if you want to. This will be most useful on your forehead or nose. Even if you don’t usually wear makeup, you may want to put a bit of concealer or powder over any dark circles under your eyes. These dark places can cause a glare (and make you look sick or tired). Remember that you may need to use your passport for many occasions other than traveling.  (For example, sometimes you can use it to get a background check when you apply for a job.)  Try to wear solid colored clothing in muted tones.   Wear something flattering and reasonably comfortable. Don’t wear anything too flashy, or it will cause people to look at your outfit instead of your face. Pay most attention to your shirt, since that’s what will be in the photo. Scoop or v-necks work nicely.If it’s too low cut or if it’s a tank top, you might look naked, so check the neckline.   Since you will be in front of a white or black background, avoid those colors. Choose colors that flatter your skin tone. Wear a minimal amount of jewelry. Uniforms or anything that resembles a uniform (including camouflage) are not allowed unless they are religious attire that you wear every day.  Some people have reported that the passport office rejected their photo because it looked too much like previous photos (which means that the passport office couldn’t confirm that it was a recent picture), so you should dress a bit differently than you did in your last photo if this is an update.
A:
Style your hair. Put on approximately the same amount of makeup as usual. Dress appropriately.