Background: Dental anxiety is complex phenomenon which is associated with the thought of visiting the dentist for therapeutic or care. It may be either physical, mental or social anxiety. The most common causes of anxiety in dental patients is fear of injections, fear of choking or gagging and fear of blood. It can be shown as fear, anxiety, phobia, stress, shivering, sweating, crying during or before dental treatment. Sympathetic nervous system is activated during dental anxiety and there is provoke of fight or flight response. This causes changes in various physiological activities such as reduction in pain threshold, increase in treatment complications, post- treatment pain, late healing. Identifying anxiety in dental patient is the first and foremost step in determining the type of treatment and schedule of appointments. Progressive muscle relaxation is one such technique a where muscles and body are allowed to relax after they are tensed. Materials and methods: PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, Google scholar was searched using pre-specified search strategy. Narrative and systematic reviews are included for the data synthesis. Results: Extensive literature search was carried out using pre-defined search strategy was carried out. A total of 73 titles were screened rigorously by two independent evaluators and after duplicate exclusion, removal of irrelevant titles, 34 articles were included for full text. This review aims at detailing progressive muscle relaxation technique, a non-pharmacological, economical approach to relieve dental anxiety.
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