Maintaining good teeth and oral hygiene is about consistency. With the right habits, observed every day, you can be safe in the knowledge that you’re doing everything possible to protect your natural teeth, so that they last a lifetime.

Here at 5 dental habits that you won’t regret embracing when you reach later life (and still have each one of your pearly whites).

5 Daily Dental Habits You Won’t Regret Embracing

Sipping on water after meals

Water is a bit of an unsung hero when it comes to your oral health – it has a multifaceted role in protecting your teeth from bacteria, cavities and enamel erosion.

Each time you eat, sip on some water to remove food particles that would otherwise cause problems for your mouth. Water may not taste amazing, but it’s a neutralising force that reduces the effect acid attacks have on your teeth after meals.

We recently created a blog on how beneficial water is for your teeth, and it’s worth reading the full piece to learn more about water’s protective effects. You can find the blog here.

Brushing twice a day

It recently came out that half of Britons don’t brush their teeth twice a day (according to the Oral Health Foundation), highlighting that there is still some serious work to be done educating adults on the preventive role of brushing.

It takes just minutes for plaque to start forming on your teeth and to multiply. You wouldn’t fail to wash your hands after using the bathroom – think of failing to brush your teeth morning and night as the equivalent of this. The longer you leave bacteria lingering on your teeth, the more likely disease and decay are to set in.

Flossing daily

Which brings us to… the importance of daily flossing.

The tight gaps behind your teeth are prone to attracting bits of food left behind after you eat. When you fail to floss, you fail to clean a third (yes, a third!) of your tooth surface area.

You don’t need us to tell you that this isn’t hygienic. One of the top reasons why gum disease develops is because people fail to floss their teeth, leaving bacteria to irritate the gums and cause inflammation and bleeding.

Never skipping the hygienist or the dentist

A third of people in the UK still don’t visit the hygienist, whilst thousands remain on NHS waiting lists to get a routine dentist and hygienist appointment.  

Skipping these visits when there is (seemingly) nothing wrong with your teeth is a route to inviting dental problems into your life. Dental problems can be silent aggressors, and a dentist is often the only person who has the ability to identify them.  

Many private dentists, using high-magnification loupes that can spot the smallest of cavities and fractures in your teeth.

Meanwhile, your hygienist is responsible for the health of your gums, which are the foundation for healthy teeth. Without regular removal of plaque and tartar during hygienist appointments, your gums will start to experience symptoms of gingivitis, the early stage of gum disease.

Rethinking breakfast

Many traditional breakfast food and drink in western culture is actually downright terrible for your teeth, especially in the quantities we typically enjoy them.

Orange juice is a staple breakfast drink, and though it’s only recommended that we have a 150ml portion, many of us exceed this, exposing our teeth to a massive sugar hit first thing in the morning. Throw a sugared tea or coffee into the mix, and you’ve potentially exceeded your RDA of sugar for the day.

Other culprits include breakfast cereals, many of which aren’t fit for purpose, (as they contain ample sugar and fat), as well as the jams and compotes we spread on our toast.

We recommend checking the sugar levels in your breakfast cereal, and cutting back on the orange juice (stick to 150ml per day), to avoid your teeth becoming exposed to intense sugar hits first thing in the morning.