What’s the first thing you notice about a person? The person’s face. What facial features catch your attention? That’s right…the teeth. One of the first things you notice about someone is how pretty (or not so charming) their smile is. Chances are, if you think you’ve got a cute smile, you’d tend to smile more. If you think your smile isn’t so nice, you might not be motivated to smile as much.
This shows how important good oral hygiene is, and why you must maintain a healthy smile. Here are 5 tips to help you achieve this:
Achieving The Perfect Smile
1. Have Regular Dentist Visits
Do you want to maintain good oral hygiene? Do you want a shot at keeping a healthy, full smile? Then you need to realize the importance of regular dentist visits. Routine oral exams scheduled twice a year are scarcely enough to get you the teeth of your dreams; as a good dental hygienist you would have to routinely clean your teeth and gums; helping you remove all plaques and fully polish your teeth.
However, you can take your regular visits one step further to ensure you have that perfect smile. Ensure that when it comes to more serious oral health issues, such as your wisdom teeth coming through and causing pain, you head to a highly trained oral surgeon who can catch the problem early and solve it. They will be able to extract the teeth at an affordable cost and remove the pain.
The thing is, if you are scared of seeing a dentist because of pain, maybe you are seeing the wrong dentist! The right dentist will help you manage your pain using the right kind of medications and anesthesia, you needn’t be scared about long-term pain.
2. Daily Brushing and Flossing: An Essential Practice
According to the American Dental Association, you should brush your teeth twice a day with a good toothpaste, on a soft brush. Flossing in between your teeth also helps protect them against plaque.
3. Choosing a Healthy Lifestyle
For that satisfying smile, you might need to let go of the sweet tooth, which might lead to the development of tooth decay and cavities. As much as you can, please emphasize the intake of healthy fruits and vegetables to ensure your teeth and gums are healthy and without cavities or plaques. As a rule, when you have consumed stuff rich in sugar content, it would be wise to brush immediately afterwards.
4. Mouthwash has benefits
There are many health benefits of using a mouthwash. Besides the fact that a mouthwash makes your breath smell super fresh, it also kills bacteria and helps in protecting your teeth and gums.
The American Dental Association classifies mouthwashes as either cosmetic or therapeutic. While cosmetic mouthwashes don’t offer much in terms of medical benefits, you should gun for a therapeutic mouthwash which has several active ingredients such as chlorhexidine, cetylpyridinium chloride, fluoride and peroxide; that help deal with conditions like plaque, gingivitis, tooth decay and most socially relevant of them; the problem of mouth odor. You must check the ingredients to ensure that you are buying the right mouthwash for your age and health stage.
Mouthwashes even help postoperatively to handle the complication of dry socket (alveolar osteitis) that often follows dental extraction. Using a good mouthwash also increases your level of confidence, as it helps you boast of whiter teeth (if it contains carbamide peroxide or hydrogen peroxide).
To get the best results, use mouthwash to rinse your mouth at least once every day, for about a minute.
5. Quit Smoking
If your aim is to create a super ripe environment for bacteria and plaque to form and grow on your teeth and gums, then you can go right ahead and continue smoking! There is scientific evidence to show that smoking not only leads to stained teeth, but it also results in gum disease, loss of teeth, and even mouth cancer.
If you’re tired of the incessant attack on your teeth and gums, are ready to deal with the nicotine and tar stains on your teeth, and make that healthy smile a signature look of yours, time’s up for the cigar in your hand.
Wrapping It Up
Your oral health should be a top priority, and as most dental issues don’t cause pain initially, it would be wise to have regular dental check-up appointments, brush/floss regularly, and live a lifestyle devoid of sugary stuff and smoking. This would certainly place us on the right path to great dental health.
You can read more about common dental diseases and how to prevent them here.
