This is a question I get asked a lot. We brush a couple of times a day, but do we understand why we do it? Why do we have to brush our teeth?
You’ve heard the saying, “You only need to brush the ones you want to keep!”
Have your teeth ever felt just yucky or fuzzy when you rub your tongue along them at the end of the day or first thing in the morning?
Mine have! I like brushing my teeth, I use a toothpaste that is anti-plaque for 24 hours because it gets rid of that icky fuzzy feeling, and it feels good.
The short answer… we brush our teeth to keep them clean and our bodies healthy our whole lives. Our body keeps score, and when we let the plaque stay in our mouth, it also gets into our bloodstream and accumulates in our arteries and contributes to heart disease, among other illnesses as we get older.
The long answer we brush our teeth to prevent the food we eat from feeding plaque and bacteria and stop the formation of acids they create that weaken the outer layer of our teeth.
We brush our teeth to shake up the bacteria on the surfaces of our teeth. The longer they are left I place, the more damage they can cause, so we brush to get rid of them. But they are determined little buggers, and they keep coming back. That is why we brush in the morning and at night. We touch our face and put stuff in our mouth all day long, so we need to brush to get all the food off we ate during the day, so they can not weaken our teeth while we sleep.
You can’t tell by just looking at your teeth, but they are actually made up of different layers, the part that you can see on the outside is super hard, called enamel, which is mostly made of minerals enamel is the strongest part in your whole body, even stronger than your bones.
Unlike your bones, a tooth can’t heal itself if it’s broken, and your teeth are not hard enamel all the way through. Just below that tough outer layer, there’s another layer called dentin, that’s not as hard, and below that, there’s the inner layer of the tooth called the pulp, which has blood vessels and nerves inside it, and this part of your tooth is super sensitive.
So, to protect the delicate inside of your teeth, you have to take good care of the outside, and the best way to do that is to clean them after you eat because the food feeds we eat, feed the bacteria that can damage, even the tough outer layers of your teeth.
You might think that you ate every last bite of those crackers that you had for a snack. But the truth is, some tiny pieces of food are still hanging around. That’s because your teeth aren’t all shiny and smooth.
They have lots of bumps and ridges that help you tear and grind up your food, and there are lots of small spaces between them too. These are places where it’s easy for food to get stuck and hang out all day, which is kind of gross when you think about it. But you know what’s even grosser. You’re not the only one enjoying these leftovers. There are lots of tiny little things that call your mouth home.
These are called bacteria, they’re way too small to see, but they’re definitely there. There are a lot of them in just your mouth alone; there are more bacteria than there are people on earth, some kinds of bacteria are really good to have others just kind of hang around and are neither good nor bad.
Then there are some who are pretty bad houseguests. You don’t want them staying in your mouth for too long, one type of bacteria loves to eat the same stuff that you do,
especially sugars and starches, which means things like cookies chips, bread candy and cereal, these bacteria hang around on your teeth and in your mouth eating your leftovers. And once they’re done eating those tiny bits of food, they poop acid, which can hurt your teeth.
This acid can cause holes called cavities to form in the enamel of your teeth, and cavities can hurt. They might even make it hard for you to eat if they get too big, but the good news is that when you brush your teeth, you clean away the food that those bacteria love, and you sweep away some of the bacteria themselves, and with them, goes that
achy gross feeling on your teeth.
So we brush our teeth before we go to bed to get rid of all those tiny bits of food we’ve been eating during the day to clean out the bacteria that are hiding in our mouth fewer bits of food in there and fewer bacteria, meaning have less of a chance of getting cavities, but you should brush your teeth in the morning, too.
Even though you brush the night before, there are always some bacteria sticking around in your mouth, and while you were sleeping, those little guys were partying it up.
If we don’t brush or see a dentist to find a cavity in its early stage, the cavity will just keep getting bigger and bigger until we have pain, need a root canal, or worse, we have to get it pulled and now have an open space.
How would you crunch up a pretzel or bite into an apple without teeth?
You’d have very few choices of foods that you could eat without teeth! ( apple sauce and bananas) So you’ve got to take care of them.
That’s why you should brush your teeth at least twice a day in the morning and at bedtime, taking care of your teeth will make sure that they stay strong and healthy, so you can keep eating the food you love.
Which keeps the rest of you healthy. An electric toothbrush is 10 times more effective than a manual brush. No matter which brush you choose,
brushing is an important way to keep your mouth and your body healthy.
A healthy mouth is a healthy body and a healthy life!
If you would like to try an electric toothbrush, I am a Burst ambassador and recommend Burst. www.burstoralcare.com Use Promo code 5ZMZBR for discount
