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In the daily rush of modern life it can be hard to find time to care for yourself, and this includes taking appropriate care of your smile. Brushing and flossing your teeth properly each day is vital to avoiding tooth decay and toothaches. Mindfulness is good for your health, and there’s no reason that shouldn’t include your dental hygiene routine. What follows is an mindfulness exercise for caring for your teeth. Think of it like a guided meditation for your smile!
At the end of this 4 minute exercise, you should feel calm and content that you have taken proper care of your oral health.
Start by choosing a calm, isolated space. For most people this is the bathroom. If there are other people in your home that are being noisy or distracting, you should close the door.
Measure out your floss. You should use about 1.5 feet (45 cm) of floss to ensure that you have room to grip it while also not using the same length of floss throughout your mouth. Using a fresh part of the floss each time you move between teeth helps prevent the bacteria that cause tooth decay from spreading.
Holding the floss with your fingers a few inches apart, gentle wiggle the floss between your teeth. Curve the floss in a C-shape around each tooth and slowly move the floss up and down, all the way to the gumline and back. Your gums may start to tingle from the movement of the floss. Concentrate on this feeling as a massage for your gums, with the floss as a skillful massage therapist, soothing trouble spots and cleansing you of bad energy. When each tooth has gotten equal attention, discard your floss.
Next, select your toothbrush and carefully apply toothpaste. At this point, start counting in your head. Start with your top teeth and spend 30 seconds on the front of your teeth and the biting surfaces. Hold your toothbrush so the bristles are at a 45 degree angle to your teeth. This ensures that the brush sweeps against the gumline, where plaque and debris tend to accumulate.
Spend the next 30 seconds on the inside (tongue-side) surfaces of your teeth. To best reach this side, tilt your brush vertically and make several up and down strokes on each tooth. After 60 seconds total has passed, move on to your bottom teeth, repeating the process above in two more 30-second intervals.
As you brush, imagine your teeth becoming whiter and smoother. With each stroke, you are loosening and sweeping away sticky yellow plaque and revealing the gleaming surfaces of your pearly whites.
Next, open your mouth wide and gently sweep your brush from the back to the front of your tongue. If you have a tongue scraper tool, use that instead of your toothbrush. This liberates food particles and the bacteria that can cause bad breath and tooth decay from the bumpy surface of your tongue.
Finally, rinse your mouth. This is a good time to start a breathing exercise. As you swish either water or your mouthwash, breathe slowly and deeply through your nose. Try inhaling for 3 seconds and exhaling for 3 seconds. After you’ve swished for the amount of time recommended on your mouthwash (usually about 30 seconds), spit it out the rinse.
Run your tongue around your teeth, enjoying their cleanliness. Take a deep breath, paying special attention to the fresh sensation of your breath. Take a moment to smile, knowing you’ve taken excellent care of your smile.
Despite what some people seem to think, a hygienist’s greatest desire is not to scold patients. A dental hygienist’s greatest desire is to see healthy mouths free of tooth decay and dental disease. As the professional at our practice that you see the most often, your dental hygienist is on the front lines of keeping your smile healthy, so you better make sure to stay on his or her good side!
Here are a few things you shouldn’t do if you want to stay on your dental hygienist’s nice list.
Rumors have been flying around about a study that says flossing doesn’t prevent gum disease, but flossing is still vitally important for your dental hygiene. Think flossing doesn’t matter? Tell that to your dental hygienist when she finds a popcorn kernel between your teeth from when you went to the movies three weeks ago! When debris is allowed to build up between teeth, it can become a breeding ground for bacteria that cause tooth decay. Relying on your hygienist to clean between your teeth every few months isn’t enough! You still have to floss daily if you want healthy teeth and gums.
We get it, it’s super strange to leave your mouth wide open for a long time. But please try to keep it open as wide as you can for as long as you can! Hygienists depend on being able to see inside your mouth in order to do their jobs thoroughly and spot problems like tooth decay, signs of bruxism, gum disease and more. If your hygienist keeps having to ask you to open your mouth, that’s a sign that you’re making things very difficult for him or her.
This one is more about common courtesy than your dental health, though we’re all for extra brushing. If you brush in the morning and before bed, you might not bother to brush your teeth right before your dental appointment. But we guarantee that making the extra effort to brush your teeth right before your professional teeth cleaning goes a long way with your hygienist. Also, if you know you have a dental appointment that day, avoid stinky foods like onion and garlic that may linger on your breath hours later, even after brushing! It’s just the polite thing to do.
This may be the most important thing to avoid. The hygienist is a trained dental professional who, along with the dentist, is part of a team dedicated to keeping your healthy and treating problems in the most conservative and gentle way possible. Much of the time, the hygienist is the first person to spot signs of trouble, such as tooth decay that needs repair or bleeding gums that are a sign of gingivitis or gum disease. If your hygienist says you need to come in for cleanings more frequently than twice a year and that you need to cut back on sugary drinks, this is his or her way of reducing your risks for dental problems and disease. Following your dental hygienist’s recommendations could eventually make the difference between losing or keeping all your teeth!
We’ve all heard that the pen is mightier than the sword. You might also say that the toothbrush is mightier than the drill! That’s because if you wield your toothbrush properly, it’s a very powerful weapon against tooth decay & gum disease. But like any tool, if you want it to work best, you need to take care of it. That’s why you need to replace your toothbrush frequently to maintain proper oral hygiene!
The American Dental Association recommends replacing your toothbrush every 3-4 months. Toothbrushes become worn over time & bristles bend & fray they become less effective at cleaning your teeth. A toothbrush with straight, stiff (not hard!) bristles will do the best job.
If you find you often forget to replace your toothbrush on time, try putting a note or a reminder in your personal calendar every 3 months to buy a new one. Always buy soft-bristled toothbrushes. Hard or medium bristles are not necessary to properly or effectively clean your teeth, & may even damage your enamel, making your teeth more vulnerable to tooth decay.
Another good reminder of when to change your toothbrush is when we hand you a new one at your 6-month cleaning appointment! You should replace your toothbrush at least once between every bi-yearly oral hygiene appointment with us.
Not everyone knows this, but toothbrushes will actually show physical signs that it’s time for them to be replaced. The most obvious sign is that the bristles will start to fray & splay outward instead of standing up straight.
(This effect will be more severe if you brush your teeth to hard. If you notice your brush’s bristles fraying very soon after they’re new, it may be a sign that you’re brushing so hard you can damage your teeth or cause sensitivity. How thorough you are is much more important than how hard you brush. Be gentle!)
Many toothbrush manufacturers also build a wear guide into the bristles of their brushes. Most of the time this is in the form of a colored strip of bristles. Once the color on these bristles has faded significantly, it’s time to replace your toothbrush.
Brushing your teeth is such a routine habit that you may forget that there’s a right and a wrong way to do it. But proper brushing is super important for preventing tooth decay and gum disease! Here are a few things you may be doing wrong in your dental hygiene habits and what to do instead to make sure your smile stays healthy now and into the future.
Hard and fast may be great for your SoulCycle workout, but not so for your teeth. Whether you’re rushing out the door to work in the morning or groggily stumbling to bed in the evening, there’s a tendency to rush through your dental hygiene routine just to get it over with. If you’re not going to brush for 2 whole minutes, you may think you can make up for it by applying more pressure and scrubbing your teeth harder. Not true! It’s much more important to be thorough and gentle. Brushing too hard can actually weaken your tooth enamel, making your teeth more vulnerable to tooth decay and sensitive teeth. Plus, you can actually irritate an injure your gums by brushing too hard. Take the time to do it right and your smile will thank you!
Despite what some ads and commercials might have you think, there is no single brand of toothbrush that most dentists recommend. That being said, there are some guidelines you should always follow when choosing a toothbrush. First, get a soft-bristle brush. We know there are medium bristle and hard bristle options out there, but we’re sort of confused as to why they exist, because they’re not good for your teeth (they can be really hard on your tooth enamel, which can lead to cavities and sensitivity). So stick to a soft bristle brush and only buy a hard bristle one if you’re going to use it to clean the grout in your bathroom.
Believe it or not, size is important too. If you have a smaller mouth, choose a brush with a smaller head that allows you to reach the tighter spaces in the back of your mouth. We’d hate to see your back molars getting neglected just because your toothbrush is too big!
Once you’ve found your perfect toothbrush, try not to get too attached. It’s going to be a three-month relationship at most. That’s right: the lifespan of a toothbrush is only about three months. After that, the bristles get worn out and start sticking out every which way, which makes it hard for them to effectively remove plaque and debris from the surfaces of your teeth. If your toothbrush looks fluffy like a feather duster (or Guy Fieri’s hair), it’s time to toss it.
