Christmas is a wonderful time of the year for a lot of reasons, but it can also be a difficult time, especially when it comes to your oral health. If you are keen to keep dental dramas at bay, here are 3 tips to help you keep your teeth clean this Christmas:
- Brush twice a day: polls suggest that a large proportion of people only brush once a day, despite advice from dentists to clean the teeth twice a day. Brushing is a means of removing food debris and bacteria from the mouth and reducing the risk of plaque formation. When you brush, use gentle circular strokes, brush along the gum line and use fluoride toothpaste.
- Clean between the teeth: brushing is brilliant, but it can’t clean the entire mouth. It’s impossible to fit a brush head between the teeth and this is why cleaning the gaps between the teeth is so important. You can either use dental floss or inter-dental brushes, which are tiny hand-held brushes that are specially designed to clean between the teeth.
- Avoid snacking: it’s not just important to keep an eye on what you eat. It’s also beneficial to think about when you eat. When you eat, bacteria in the mouth start to feed and this causes them to release acids, which erode the enamel. If you eat throughout the day, this means that your enamel never has chance to recover, making the teeth susceptible to damage and decay.
