What causes you stress? Traffic, job, not having a job? The pressures you feel can take a toll on your body. For financial planner Carla Liberatore, the stress was showing up through pain in her jaw.

"I heard cracking when I was eating," said Liberatore. "Then when I would wake up in the morning, I would notice that my jaw would hurt."

The pain in her jaw was a symptom of a problem known as temporomandibular disorder (TMD), which affects an estimated five to 10 percent of people in the U.S., most often women. TMD has been linked to stress. 

"In our activities of daily life, we are carrying a lot of tension in our tongue and in our jaw," said Laura Landseidel of Hands On Health Massage Therapy. "It's that clenching, holding, and grinding that causes the temporomandibular joint to wear down."

So in addition to her regular massage, Liberatore got a special kind of facial massage to relax the muscles in her face and jaw. The therapist actually worked muscles from the inside and out, clamping Liberatore's cheek between her forefinger and thumb to massage the inflamed tissue.

Afterward, Landseidel taught Liberatore some self-treatment techniques to do at home, beginning with identifying the source of the pain by putting her fingertips on her cheeks just below her cheekbones and near the hinge of the jaw.  Using small circles, she massaged the joint to relax the muscle. 

People with TMD often struggle to open their jaw wide, so another exercise helped extend her range of motion.

"Imagine you have a pen in your mouth and you're drawing circles," she explained to Liberatore. "But don't move your head."

Landseidel said the at-home techniques including more intense tissue massage can be done in just a few minutes and can help patients avoid the buildup of stress that can lead to pain. In addition to therapy, many people with TMD wear mouthguards at night to prevent tooth grinding.

Click the video link above to watch the massage technique for TMD.