Teeth Brushing Not Once But Twice!

Brushing is usually done once a day in the morning before breakfast, but one should also develop and maintain the habit of brushing before going to the bed at night. Brushing not only helps us in keeping our teeth clean and odorless but also makes us feel fresh. As individuals we need to be presentable everywhere we go and our smile play an important role in this. Teeth easily become visible when a person smiles and a good smile needs clean white teeth which provide a naturally presentable look to our face. Teeth play a more important role in our daily nutrition by chewing the food that we eat. Teeth also help in the process of our metabolism by breaking down our food during the process of ingestion. Thus it becomes quite important for us to maintain the good habit of brushing every day and possibly twice a day.

                We might think of brushing twice as a simple task but in reality, most of us become lazy after a heavy dinner. The entire day’s work makes us feel tired, leading to a lack of energy and enthusiasm for brushing our teeth. This we might feel like skipping brushing of teeth for that particular day, but as time passes on, we end up brushing twice a day for just 2-3 days in a week. Here some of us may say that our mouth smells bad and needs cleaning mainly in the morning. This is true to some extent, but the smell is due to the improper cleaning done at night. Food particles remain stuck in between our teeth throughout the day’s eating and thus need to be removed by brushing at night before going to the bed. Brushing of teeth is not taken seriously by everyone around us. Many people remain casual about brushing and maintaining their oral hygiene, thus leading to poor consequences such as bad breath, yellowing of teeth, cavities, gum disease and eventually loss of teeth.

The ill effects actually start due to accumulation of plaque or a film or layer of bacteria that grows on surfaces within the mouth. These bacteria depend on simple sugars in our food such as sucrose for their energy needs and grow when left undisturbed (due to irregular and improper brushing). Plaque deposit is initially colorless and odorless but later on it becomes brown or pale yellow and start to have a foul smell. It is usually seen between the teeth, on the front of teeth, behind teeth or along the gum line. Plaque is the main cause of tooth decay and gum diseases. Different people experience different symptoms depending on their oral conditions. Common symptoms include toothache, bad breath, difficulty in eating; whereas in extreme cases there can bleeding gums, inflammation around the tooth, infection or abscess formation and tooth loss. We must not ignore the fact that even the initial symptoms like bad breath and pain can cause a lot of anxiety and distress in individuals.

We saw a few issues which can come up due to ignorance of our oral hygiene, but here we are again with our topic Teeth Brushing! Regular brushing can easily remove food particles stuck on tooth surface and prevent plaque formation. Thus, if we knowingly and willingly give time to the simple task of brushing our teeth twice per day, we can actually avoid all the above dental problems in the simplest of way possible. “Prevention is always better than cure”. We need to understand the importance of our teeth and take their best possible care.