6 Easily Adaptable New Year’s Resolutions for Optimising Your Dental Health

The best New Year’s resolutions are often centred around increasing our health and wellness. If you decide to base some of your resolutions around your oral care, it’s a win-win situation for your overall health and financial situation. After all, there’s no greater way to avoid dental costs than to keep on top of your dental health initially. So, with this in mind, here are six New Year’s resolutions that you can follow in 2023 and beyond to ensure you start as you mean to go on.

#1 – Ramp Up Your Oral Habits

When discussing oral care, achieving good dental health is easier than you imagine because it is about doing more of the same or refining some of your actions. 

For example, if you already brush twice daily, try introducing a brush after every meal.

If this isn’t possible, try increasing your brush times to at least 3 minutes. Evidence suggests that an increase of just one minute per brush can help remove more plaque and improve dental health.  

#2 – Floss Daily

According to Dentistry Today, 58% of people don’t floss, while 47% only floss once a week. Moreover, of the 1700 people surveyed, 92% of people would floss if it was made easier. 

While regular brushing is the foundation of a great-looking smile, flossing is the icing on the cake. Although there is limited evidence to suggest that flossing significantly improves oral health as a standalone routine, we know that a build-up of debris can cause infection, inflammation and decay. The longer food particles remain lodged between teeth, the more chance of developing gum problems. Therefore, someone with little space between teeth or tooth overcrowding would need to floss between teeth daily to remove excess debris and prevent tooth decay. 

If you really don’t like the thought of passing string wax in between your teeth, you can always invest in a waterpik. As the name suggests, a waterpik uses a pinpoint jet of water to remove debris between teeth without the discomfort or difficulty of passing floss between your teeth.

Whatever method you use, it pays to incorporate flossing into your daily oral care routine.

#3 – Make Healthier Food Choices For Your Teeth

Let’s face it, what you eat can become food for bacteria in the mouth. So if you want to avoid gum disease and, inevitably, costly treatment, it’s well worth considering your food intake. 

Considerations may include:

  • Limiting any sugary foods
  • Reducing snacking between meals
  • Avoiding or restricting acidic foods or beverages.

As a top tip, if you like the odd sugary snack or acidic drink and can’t go ‘cold turkey’, consider rinsing the mouth with water immediately after consumption. This way, any sugar or acid within the food or drink has little or no time to do any damage.

#4 – Go Electric

If you still use a manual toothbrush, this might be the time to switch to an electric brush. Multiple studies show that electric toothbrushes remove more debris and plaque than a manual device over a period of time. In some cases, by around 20%.

Aside from that, electric toothbrushes are far easier to use and require less dexterity to operate. Some sonic toothbrushes use a technique known as ‘fluid dynamics’ that can remove debris without touching the site directly. Using a combination of extreme movement (up to 40,000 revolutions per minute) and intense vibration, the brush head agitates any plaque up to 0.3 cm away from where the head has made contact with the tooth. The result is more surface area coverage and greater plaque removal in hard-to-reach places. No visible plaque means improved dental health. Simple!

#5  Quitting The Habit

You probably know that smoking is bad for overall health, but did you know it’s detrimental to our dental health too? If you smoke, for example, the NHS website suggests that bacteria contained within cigarette smoke escalates existing gum disease faster than in non-smokers. Moreover, smokers are twice as likely to develop gum disease than a non-smoker. 

Aside from that, tobacco stains teeth and can cause bad breath. Smoking leaves chemical compounds in the mouth, which, when mixed with saliva, can cause unpleasant odours. 

So if you have considered quitting but haven’t yet taken the plunge, now is the ideal time to make it happen. Doing so may improve your dental health and put more cash in your pocket.

#6 Increase Your Dental Visits 

It might be challenging to consider how increasing dental visits can save you cash, but it’s true! 

Think of it this way, if you have a car and never service it, it’s more likely to break down when you least expect it. Ultimately, when it does, it’s unlikely to be something minor and will probably cost you a small fortune. Look at a routine dental visit as an MOT for your teeth!

Routine dental visits are all about maintaining your dental health. During a visit, your dentist will give your teeth and gums a thorough once-over. This allows them to spot problems early, suggesting a fixable and cost-effective solution where necessary. More importantly, fixing any dental issues early ensures that any oral health problems don’t escalate into something more severe and costly in the future.

New Years’ Resolutions For Your Dental Health – The Bottom Line!

Making any resolution to enhance your oral health is never a bad thing. If you implement one or more of these minor lifestyle adjustments, you could achieve optimum dental health without too much effort or too many changes.

The start of a new year means there is no better time to kick things off. At Foxbury Dental, we would love to support you on your journey to improved dental health and to do just that; we’d like to inform you of our affordable dental care plans. Starting from £8.49 per month, you can experience regular check-ups and hygiene appointments to keep your smile in check. 

Knowing that your routine oral care is covered is a great gift to yourself and trust us when we say that you really are worth it!    

To find out more about our dental care plans, visit our website. Alternatively, if you’re overdue a check-up or want to book an appointment for an existing dental issue, call us on 01858 455 100 or book a visit online at a date and time of your convenience.

Free advice and news

Foxbury Dental is at the forefront of dentistry, keeping up to date with techniques, technology and all things teeth. Keep smiling with us with free advice and news.

BOOK YOUR VISIT