Having healthy teeth and gums doesn’t only benefit your oral health. It also promotes better general physical and mental health. Do you feel like you haven’t given your oral health the attention it deserves? Well, the start of a new year is a great time to commit to turning over a new leaf. As your Wentworth Point and Ropes Crossing family dentist, we share with you six tips for achieving your best oral health in 2021.
6 Tips For Achieving Your Best Oral Health
The good news is that good oral health is easy to achieve. It’s just a matter of being committed to doing a few simple things. Here are our six top tips for achieving your best oral health this year:
Brush Twice Daily For 2 Minutes
Our dentists recommend that you brush your teeth for two minutes, twice a day, with fluoride toothpaste. The best time to do this is first thing in the morning and before bed at night. This is important for the removal of food debris, bacteria and plaque. Plaque left to build-up in your mouth becomes stubborn tartar that leads to tooth decay and gum disease.
We suggest you use a soft-bristled toothbrush. Move it in small circular motions on the outer and inner surfaces of your teeth. You should use a light back and forth movement across the chewing surfaces of your teeth. Be extra gentle around your gum line.
Applying excessive pressure doesn’t give your teeth a better clean. It doesn’t allow the bristles of your toothbrush to do their job. It can also cause wear and damage to your teeth and gums.
Avoid Rinsing After Brushing
After brushing your teeth, you need to spit out the excess toothpaste. At this point, you may feel the need to rinse your mouth out. Many of us do. The problem with this though is that in rinsing your mouth, you wash away the fluoride.
Fluoride is the most important ingredient in toothpaste. It helps make your teeth more resistant to decay by strengthening your enamel. Consequently, you want to ensure the fluoride remains on your teeth, continuing to do its work.
Keep Up With Your Flossing
It’s no secret that brushing alone is not enough to keep our teeth and gums clean and healthy. Brushing helps clean plaque and bacteria off the surface of your teeth. However, the hard to reach parts in between your teeth and around your gum line need flossing for an effective clean.
Our dentists recommend that you floss your teeth once a day. Below is a simple step by step guide to flossing your teeth:
- Pull about 30 centimetres of dental floss from the dispenser.
- Wrap the ends of the floss around each of your middle fingers and then hold the floss between each thumb and index finger.
- Hold the floss tightly around each tooth in a C shape.
- Move the floss back and forth in a push-pull motion and up and down against the side of each tooth.
Flossing is key in achieving your best oral health. It should only take you about 2 minutes – the benefits of flossing way outdo the time it takes to do it.
Steer Clear of Snacking
What we eat and drink has a big influence on the health of our teeth and gums. Whilst snacking through the day may seem harmless, it can do significant damage. This is especially true if you’re snacking sugary foods and drinks. Are you a snacker? You’re not alone. Many of us are guilty of snacking mindlessly instead of eating three balanced meals a day.
It’s optimal for the health of our teeth and gums to consume three meals a day as opposed to regular and ongoing grazing. For achieving your best oral health, it pays to maintain a healthy, well-rounded diet with limited sugar and plenty of water.
Kick The Habit
Smoking increases your risk of developing gum disease significantly. The Department of Health QLD, suggests it puts you at as much as 3 times the risk. As a smoker, your immune system is less efficient at fighting the harmful bacteria that promote gum disease. You may also have exposed tooth roots due to periodontal pockets. This increases the vulnerability of your teeth to infection. Smoking may also lead to several other serious general health issues.
Is achieving your best oral health on your 2021 to-do-list? Then one of the best things you can do is quit smoking. At both of our dental practices, we have seen patients enhance their oral health by kicking the habit.
We appreciate that kicking the habit isn’t easy. Luckily, there are many tools and resources to ease the load. It’s especially helpful to engage your friends and loved ones to support you along the way.
Maintain Regular Dental Check-Ups
Last but not least, if you want to achieve your best oral health in 2021, you need to maintain regular dental check-ups. If you’re unsure of when you last visited the dentist, you’re not alone. Many people avoid visiting the dentist for routine check-ups, waiting until they run into a dental issue to schedule an appointment.
During a check-up appointment, your dentist will conduct a thorough oral examination and discuss your oral health with you. From there, they can tailor a personalised oral health plan for you. This plan may be as simple as keeping up good oral hygiene at home and having a check-up every 6 months. Alternatively, it may include some general or restorative dental treatments to help you improve your oral health.
Having a dentist you trust to monitor your oral health is a great way to stay on track to achieving your best oral health.
How Boon Dental Can Help
At our Wentworth Point and Ropes Crossing Dental practices, we have a common goal – to help you and your family reach and maintain your best possible oral health. We do this by offering a range of quality dental treatments in our modern and comfortable treatment rooms.
Do you want to improve your oral health this year? It’s never too late, and our team of gentle dental professionals are here to support you every step of the way.
Please feel free to contact us to schedule a dental check-up.