How to brush your teeth properly
How to brush your teeth properly
Brushing your teeth is the foundation of a good oral care routine. If you brush your teeth properly, then you can expect to enjoy a lifetime of good dental health as well as a beautiful smile. However, if you brush your teeth the wrong way or not often enough, it can lead to tooth decay and gum disease.
In this post, we’ll discuss how to brush your teeth properly so that you can avoid oral health problems and have a good, long-lasting smile.
The importance of a systematic brushing technique
First of all, it’s important to realise that your teeth have three surfaces that need to be cleaned: the outside surface, the chewing surface, and the inside surface. Each of these three surfaces needs to be cleaned properly to avoid tooth decay.
To avoid missing any of these surfaces, it helps to have a systematic brushing method. It doesn’t matter what system you use, as long as you have a system.
For example, one brushing system you could use is to clean all the outside surfaces of your teeth first, then move on to the chewing surfaces, and then finally the inside surfaces of your teeth.
It’s fine if you use a different system. What’s important is that you have one so that you don’t miss any part of your teeth when you brush.
Use a soft circular motion instead of a hard scrubbing motion
Many patients use a long, hard scrubbing action when their brush their teeth. This is bad for two reasons. The first reason is that brushing your teeth too hard can cause gum recession, which is where your gums recede away from your teeth. The second reason is that a long scrubbing action means that you’re not changing the direction of your toothbrush very often, which means that the technique is not very effective at cleaning your teeth.
It’s best to use a small, soft circular motion when you brush. This technique is much softer on your teeth. It also means that the direction of the toothbrush changes much more often, which makes it very effective at keeping your teeth clean.
However, while using a small circular motion is really good for cleaning the outside and inside surfaces of your teeth, the same isn’t true for your chewing surfaces. Here, you should use a scrubbing motion instead. This is because the chewing surface of your teeth has nooks and crannies that your toothbrush bristles won’t get reach with the small circles method.
Make sure not to miss any part of your gums or teeth
Finally, there are some parts of the mouth that people often miss when they’re brushing. For example, one common area that people miss is the back of the front teeth. Make sure you brush well here.
Another area that patients often miss is the area where the gums meet your teeth. If you don’t clean this area properly, your gums can become red and swollen, and eventually, you could develop gum disease. To brush this area of your mouth properly, the secret is to simply angle your brush at 45 degrees.
Want to talk to a dentist?
If you’d like to speak to one of our dentists about your brushing technique or any other dental issue, simply make an appointment by speaking to one of our friendly receptionists.
