5 New Year’s Resolutions for your Teeth & Gums

Now that the Christmas festivities are over, it’s time to start focusing on our healthy intentions for the year ahead. No doubt your teeth and gums took a bit of a bashing over the holiday season, but not to worry, here’s how you can make a promise to take better care of your oral health this coming year. 

Schedule a dental appointment 

If you’ve been slack with staying on top of your dental appointments, you’re not alone. According to the American Dental Association (ADA), approximately one-third of people in the US see a dentist less than once a year.

The ADA recommends that you schedule a dental appointment every 6 months to help keep your teeth and gums healthy. Leaving problems untreated could make them more difficult to treat later on, so it’s best to get ahead of the game and treat them early, and if possible, prevent them altogether.

As well as getting a regular check-up, we also recommend scheduling a bi-annual professional cleaning with your dental hygienist. This will help to remove any hard calculus that may have cemented on your gum line. For more information on professional cleanings, check out our article, ‘Why You Should Never Skip a Professional Dental Cleaning’.

Commit to daily flossing

Flossing is just as important as brushing. While brushing cleans the back and front of your teeth, flossing cleans the sides. The main reason why flossing is so important is that it mechanically scrapes microscopic clusters of plaque-producing bacteria from the surface of your tooth before it has a chance to form into hard calcified tartar.

It can take as little as 24 hours for plaque to form into tartar, after which, only metal implements can remove it. So being diligent with your flossing practice is very important if you want to prevent gum disease and avoid those painful and expensive dentist visits. For information on the importance of flossing and how to do it, check out our article, ‘To Floss or Not to Floss?‘.

RELAX!

Setting an intention to relax and bring more peace of mind into your life for the coming year is one of the best intentions you could make for yourself. A relaxed mind means a relaxed body and a relaxed body means a healthy body. 

Your constant state of agitation and anxiety hinders the immune system’s ability to ward off gum disease. Stress causes inflammation in the blood vessels, which breaks down the soft tissue in the mouth, inhibiting its ability to heal’. – Romak Denture Centre

When we experience negative emotions, we actually alter our DNA, which leads to a depletion of the immune system and decreases our body’s ability to regulate its inflammatory response. If you would like to learn more about how stress affects your oral health, then check out our article, ‘Relax! Stress could be causing your gum disease’.

We recommend a 10-minute meditation practice every morning to focus on your breath and quiet your mind. Our article, ‘3 breathing exercises for stress, tension, and anxiety’, offers some beneficial practices for helping you de-stress. 

A brisk walk in nature and regular exercise can also be a wonderful remedy for stress and will get you back in touch with that innate wonderful feeling of well-being.

Eat more teeth-and-gum-friendly foods

Do you know why our ancestors had such impeccable oral health? It’s because they ate a completely raw, unrefined, highly nutritious, and sugar-free diet.

Dental health professional Dr. Lisa Marie Samaha, says that healthy eating not only boosts our immune system but also nourishes our soft oral tissues, which are the most vulnerable in the body.

 “A diet with at least six to eight fist-sized servings of fruits and vegetables, along with nutritional supplements of calcium, vitamin D, vitamin C, magnesium, and anti-inflammatories such as fish oil, are all critical building blocks of oral health,” says Dr. Samaha.

So when you’re next at the grocery store, be sure to fill your cart with nutritious goodies to nourish and strengthen your teeth and gums. For a more detailed explanation of the essential vitamins for oral health and which nutritious foods to find them in, check out our article, ‘Fantastic Four Fat Solubles and Why We Need Them’.

Use natural tooth and gum products

Now, this one’s a biggie. If you are using a fluoride-based toothpaste, throw it away right now! We’re serious. If you are a person that tends to struggle with your oral health, then it is likely that the oral health products you are using could be the cause of your problems. Conventional types of toothpaste are packed full of toxins that are extremely detrimental to not only your oral health but your overall bodily health too. Our article, ‘Toxic Ingredients In Your Toothpaste,’ explains what harmful ingredients you may be brushing your teeth with and why they are so detrimental to your health. 

We cannot stress enough the importance of using a natural oral health product. When you use a product with natural ingredients, you are letting your body do the work to heal itself naturally. You are letting your body do what it was born to do!

This is why we recommend using our 100% natural tooth powder, which is jam-packed full of all the essential nutrients for optimal tooth and gum health. Good-Gums contains completely natural and pure ingredients and is absolutely free from all chemicals, toxins and artificial ingredients.

Good-Gums soothes sore gums and strengthens tooth enamel, while also counteracting acidity in the mouth and neutralizing bacteria that cause plaque buildup.

Our formula is designed to absorb into your gums, putting back all the vital nutrients that are necessary to get your teeth and gums back in tip-top shape.

If you would like to try our all-natural tooth and gum formula please click here.

Let’s make 2020 the best year yet! Here’s to a newer, healthier you!