A smile is a potent tool in boosting your confidence and personality, and healthy teeth lay the foundation of a glorious smile.
Cleaning teeth efficiently holds unsurpassable importance in maintaining them in a healthy and strong manner. Effortless and straightforward measures like regular brushing and flossing can help you tremendously in the long run and safeguard you from a lot of oral troubles whose root cause lies within improperly cleaned teeth.
Thus, it becomes fundamental that the techniques you adopt to clean your teeth don’t have any shortcomings. You must make sure that you follow the strict guidelines and inculcate oral hygiene in your daily routine activities. Teach your kids healthy oral practices from a tender age, so that they don’t face troubles like dental caries, which are quite frequent among children.
Even more important than knowing the implications of cleaning teeth, is identifying the correct method to do so.
In this article, you will get to comprehend the common mistakes people make while cleaning their teeth.
- Brushing For Too Long Or Too Short: Time of brushing sessions is crucial. On average, 2 minutes of brushing time is recommended for cleaning.
Brushing your teeth is essential, but an excess of everything is unhealthy.
Prolonged brushing can have antagonistic effects on your teeth rather than any benefit. It may rather lead to the wearing of your teeth sooner than expected.
On the other hand, not giving adequate time to brushing will lead to incomplete clean teeth, which act as a substrate for infection.
- Using Worn Off Toothbrush: Choice of the toothbrush is another important factor determining your oral health. A lot of people make this mistake of using the same toothbrush for years. This is very toxic for your teeth. Ideally, the toothbrush should be changed after 200 brushing sessions. However, people often fail to realise this and continue using it for long. Bristles lose their flexibility and get worn off after some time. Also, the bacteria build up on the toothbrush itself because tiny food particles get accumulated in it on continued usage.
- Improper Location Of Keeping The Toothbrush: Most of the people tend to keep their toothbrush in the bathroom, but it is not an appropriate place. With time, when you take a bath, the dirty water and soap particles manage to settle on your toothbrush. Also, when you flush, some particles from the content get to float around and settle on your toothbrush. This ultimately leads to major issues. Thus, keep your toothbrush either on a shelf or cover it with a toothbrush cover so that any undue particle does not sit on it.
- Ignorance In Using Dental Floss: Flossing is imperative to remove the buildup of plaque from in between your teeth. If you do not floss your teeth on a regular basis, the plaque gradually clarifies and makes your teeth brittle. Although it is a relatively tough and time-consuming task, at the same time, it is also essential. So make sure that you floss at least one tooth per day. Such small steps will ultimately lead to the clearing of all the teeth.
- Not Cleaning Your Tongue: Most of the people forget that tongue is also a vital part of the oral cavity, and cleaning the tongue holds no less important than cleaning the teeth. The tongue is also exposed to every food particle entering the mouth and is also prone to the buildup of bacteria if not cleaned correctly. You can use a tongue cleaner, or the bristles of your brush will be sufficient to clean your tongue thoroughly.
- Incorrect Brushing Technique: As I already mentioned in the beginning, the correct brushing technique is indispensable to clean your teeth properly. A significant number of people brush back and forth, which is incorrect. Small consecutive circles are what you need to make while brushing. It will clean every corner of your teeth. Make sure that you cover every portion from the upper gum to the lower gum and from front to the back. Avoid brushing too hard or too lightly. Maintain adequate strength while brushing.
- Incorrect Brushing Angle: Never keep your brush completely horizontal at 0°. You have to maintain a 45° angle while making small circular strokes. You can also use a toothbrush with angled bristles already oriented at this angle. This is the most effective angle to clean your teeth thoroughly because it enables the brush to reach every nook of your set of teeth.
- Improper Toothbrush Selection: A toothbrush must be chosen wisely. The flexibility of the body and the rigidity of the bristles must be considered. Don’t choose a brush with hard bristles as it may lead to scraping or abrasion of your gums. This will ultimately lead to damage to your gums, which may lead to periodontal diseases. Choose a brush with soft bristles and a flexible body so that it can easily reach every part of your oral cavity.
- Improper Brushing Routine: Brushing is a kind of activity that follows a routine, which means that you brush in a particular manner out of reflex because you’ve been brushing in the same way for quite a long time. Thus, some areas you leave are never covered and remain as such. So, you need to keep modifying your brushing routine from time to time. Keep a check on your teeth, and after brushing, have a thorough look to make sure that every area is well cleaned.
- Brushing Only Once A Day: You have to make sure that you brush your teeth at least twice a day. It is very necessary to brush your teeth before going to bed because that is the prime time for the bacteria to attack, and if your teeth are not adequately cleaned, they will easily become affected because they are most susceptible at this time. So never ignore brushing your teeth at night.
- Not Brushing All Surfaces: People might brush only the front surface of the teeth and forget about the remaining surfaces. You must make sure that you clean all the surfaces, including front back and lateral surfaces(in case of the molar) and also in between the two teeth. Many times, people have a clean surface on the front and heavy plaque deposition on the backside. Similarly, on the posterior teeth, i.e., the molars, plaque deposits are very common.
By taking care of these few common mistakes and making sure that you adopt the correct technique when you brush the next time, you can significantly help your teeth in becoming robust and healthy. You should visit your family dentists frequently for regular oral assessment so that they can keep a track on your oral condition and if any potential risk is present, they can guide you towards its prevention, care and if unfortunately, any problem occurs, they can identify it at an early stage and provide you with adequate treatment.
Small steps will contribute to avoiding huge troubles later, which you may face otherwise. Because anyway, Prevention is better than cure.
Thus, keep your teeth clean and healthy and avoid making these common mistakes, which are mentioned above.
“Don’t brush all your teeth, only the ones you want to keep.”