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5 Top Tips For Brushing Your Teeth

It doesn’t matter if you’re an adult or a child, for some people brushing your teeth can be the worst chore to complete in your day.

We all know that dental care is an important part of looking after our bodies, but if you hate the idea of brushing away grime, we have some tips to help you keep the routine going.

Buy Kids’ Toothpaste

For many adults, the uncomfortable experience of brushing your teeth comes from the disdain for the minty fresh flavor that comes in every brand available to you.

Almost all adult toothpaste tastes like mint. It might be peppermint or spearmint, but either way those flavors are your only choice to pick from. If you hate the taste of mint or simply don’t receive any satisfaction from it, then look at the kids’ aisle.

Kids’ toothpaste comes in a variety of flavors as they try to entice children into brushing their teeth. Strawberry, apple, bubblegum, and even tasteless options are widely available in the kids’ section.

The difference between adult and kids’ toothpaste is the amount of fluoride in the product. Children’s options have less fluoride to prevent white spots on their teeth, but the caloric value and other ingredients are largely the same.

Wait 30 Minutes After Eating Before You Brush Your Teeth

There are two reasons to wait 30 minutes before brushing your teeth after a meal. The first is to avoid harming your teeth, and the second is to avoid clashing flavors.

As we said before the majority of adult toothpaste tastes like some form of mint, but mint very rarely goes well with other flavors. Take your morning breakfast as an example – eggs, bacon, toast, and orange juice.

If you brush your teeth straight after this meal you will wince at the awkward combination of orange juice and mint. It’s enough to put you off brushing your teeth all day. In fact, many people end up avoiding brushing their teeth in the morning for this specific reason. If that sounds like you, simply wait for 30 minutes for the flavors to dye down and then begin brushing.

The other reason is because the sugars and carbohydrates in your food will contain bacteria that actively damage your tooth enamel. In the first 20 to 30 minutes after eating, your teeth are at their weakest, and if you try to brush during this time you’ll end up harming that enamel layer even more. This could lead to pain when drinking old drinks or eating acidic foods.

If you wait 30 minutes, you can allow your body to heal temporarily before the brushing begins.

Brush Twice A Day, But You Pick When

The general advice given by the dentist is to brush your teeth twice a day. This is great advice to help you look after your oral hygiene, as the double brushing effect will have a greater chance of removing any lingering food and debris in your mouth.

However, that doesn’t mean you have to brush your teeth after breakfast and before you go to bed. Sure these are the best times as they are roughly 12 hours apart, however, if that doesn’t fit into your schedule you may end up missing a brushing time and reducing your overall oral health.

Instead, pick two times that make sense to you. That might be as soon as you wake up, and at the same time as your children in the early evening. Pick a time that suits you and your schedule.

Try To Brush In The Morning

Although you should pick the times which make the most sense to you, we highly suggest brushing your teeth at some point in the morning. This is because your saliva production at night slows down to prevent you from drowning. The lack of saliva allows bacteria to spread easier, which in turn gives you bad breath.

Brush in the morning, and that bad breath will go away. Leave it any longer and it will continue to build up.

Don’t Open Your Mouth Super Wide

A tooth infection is often caused by wisdom teeth not being cleaned as often as they should. The most common reason for the lack of dental care is the inability to reach the back of your jaw.

A simple way to fix this is to keep your jaw slack. It might seem counterintuitive, but you’ll be giving the skin and muscle around your wisdom teeth the flexibility they need for you to reach them.

Summary

Use the 5 tips above to help you stay on top of your dental hygiene.