How do I handle the business pressure and anxious patients of running a dental practice?

You can run the practice. What still weighs on you are the two things school never taught, the money pressure and the fear people bring into your chair. Carrying both at once is a lot. Feeling the strain does not mean you are doing it wrong. It means you are doing two hard jobs, dentist and business owner, at the same time. The business pressure eases when you face the numbers instead of dreading them. Look at them regularly, in the calm, so they stop ambushing you in the dark. And the anxious patients need something simple from you: a steady voice and a sense that you are in control. Their fear is not an attack. It is them trusting you to be the calm one, which you can be even when you do not feel it inside. Pick one source of the stress and tame it this week. Set a standing time to review the finances, or slow down your first words with nervous patients. Steadiness is a habit you build, not a mood you wait for. You already carry the hard parts. Now build the small routines that make them lighter.