5 Common Tooth Brushing Mistakes to Avoid

Brushing your teeth is a simple but effective way to help keep your teeth healthy, but not everyone knows how to do it properly. Let’s go over some common mistakes and what you can do to correct them.

Eating is something everyone needs to do, and without your teeth, digestion to help us get the nutrients we need is hard. However, when combined with the worldwide data on dental problems that lead to tooth decay and edentulism (tooth loss), the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates nearly half the population (45%, or 3.5 billion) struggle with oral diseases that affect the health of your teeth, including gums, and over time, many other parts of your body.

Toothbrushing is a daily step to reduce your risk of oral disease, but you may be surprised that not everyone knows how to do it correctly. To ensure you’re avoiding missteps when doing routine dental hygiene, like brushing your teeth, we should review the basics and look at what people get wrong.

If you live in the Brea, Banning, Corona, or Hemet, California area and struggle with some of the basics of dental care, Dr. Ayeh Hawatmeh and his Bravo Dental Group team can help.

Toothbrushing basics

Plaque is the result of sugar or starch from food collecting on teeth and mingling with existing bacteria that erodes the enamel and gets into the inner layers of teeth to do damage. Brushing your teeth twice daily is essential to keeping them clean and keeping bacteria and plaque from collecting long enough to damage them. Combined with flossing (the nylon string used to remove material from between teeth done once a day), this covers your daily hygiene and keeps your mouth healthier longer.

Things people get wrong

Some common issues people have when it comes to brushing their teeth include:

1. Choosing the right toothbrush

People sometimes pick up any toothbrush not knowing what they’re looking for, and doing that can be harmful to teeth. Your toothbrush should be able to get into as many areas on your teeth as possible, so a softer one is the better choice, whether it’s manual or electric.

2. Exercising patience

Don’t be so eager to finish and get to the next thing with dental care. Regardless of what you’re doing, you need to devote at least a couple of minutes to brushing each time, twice daily.

3. Brushing the wrong way

This step refers to a couple of issues, such as how much pressure you put on your teeth and how you move the brush as you go. Don’t feel like you need to push down on your teeth and brush harder to get better results. Massage them gently with the brush, going up and down, not back and forth.

4. Missing your gums

Cleaning the teeth is vital, but they connect to your gums, and keeping them healthy is just as important. Be sure to brush where the teeth and gums meet, no further than a millimeter from the gum line.

5. Sticking with the routine

It isn’t enough to brush your teeth for a day or two but not the next day. To get the most out of your natural teeth for the longest time, you need to do this every day, twice for brushing and once for flossing. Make it as important to your schedule as any other significant thing you do daily.

Proper brushing techniques make a world of difference to your dental health, so be on the lookout for these mistakes and correct them as you go. Make an appointment with Dr. Hawatmeh and Bravo Dental Group today to stay on top of your oral health.