Investing in our long-term health is definitely worthwhile. There are great personal gains from maintaining dental fitness. Fit teeth help us to look good and feel healthy, they save us money on treatment too. The good news is that it takes less time than honing our abs. Moreover, joining an ‘essentials’ dental plan with your dentist is cheaper per month than a gym membership.
So here are some core fitness tips for dental health to help keep us on top of our game.
Five core fitness tips for your teeth
Our core fitness tips are not very different to what we’d expect to hear from any personal trainer.
1 – Put the time in
Two minutes twice a day is not so much. But investing time in brushing our teeth makes an enormous difference to our oral health. Add to that a little more time to floss as well, and already we’re well on the way to maintaining dental fitness.
2 – Nutrition
We are what we eat! A diet with reduced sugar helps teeth stay strong. However, some ‘clean’ eating may also reduce diary products so keep in mind it’s important to keep up our calcium levels too. Our bodies don’t produce it, so we need to consume it for strong teeth and bones.
3 – Equipment
When we decide to register at a gym, we consider the machines and their maintenance too. It’s the same for oral health.
Essential equipment:
- a toothbrush, either manual or electric
- fluoride toothpaste
- interdental cleaning tools, such as floss and interdental brushes.
Regular equipment maintenance:
- toothbrush heads wear down and can harbour bacteria. We need to change our toothbrush heads every three months.
Other equipment to consider:
- mouthwash
- a tongue scraper
- an air/water floss machine
- dental equipment storage solutions
4 – Work with an expert
We should think of our dental team as our trainers. Our dentist and our therapist or hygienist is on hand to help us achieve our optimum oral fitness. That has to be a good thing. They have our wellbeing at heart, and offer lots of advice so we can be our best smiling selves.
Same as a trainer, clinicians aren’t judgemental. Their job is to work with what they’ve got. Although it can be tough getting teeth and gums back in shape, and maybe they will never be quite the way they were once, but they help us feel more comfortable and encourage us to keep up our optimum health.
5 – No cheat days
So perhaps we can have a day when we throw ‘clean’ eating out of the window, get into some carbs and sugar and skip the gym. But, for best dental conditioning, even if you have a sugar binge, never cheat on the brushing routine. It’s two minutes twice a day. It’s doable, and definitely worth it.
Get a plan
Think of a dental plan like a gym or sports club membership. Entry level prices represent good value and support your at-home regime with regular attendance and professional guidance.
If you’re interested in learning more about the monthly plans SpaDental offers patients click the button below, fill in the form, and one of our team will be back to you soon.