Going to the dentist, brushing and flossing teeth and avoiding sweets. We all know the basics of dental care. Easy access to the internet also gave us the ability to do our own research regarding dental health. When it comes to food that are good for the teeth, we already expanded our knowledge beyond the “cheese and milk are good for the teeth” facts. We now know that there are fruits and vegetables that are not only good for the teeth in terms of vitamins and minerals they provide but are also great at cleaning or removing food debris just by chewing on them.
Our knowledge about teeth whitening also expanded due to easy access to information. We now know which drinks to minimize or avoid to prevent stains. We also know which drinks are effective at removing stains. So we should be good, right? Well, yes and no. Eating the right food and doing the right dental care routine is not enough to get that perfect smile. There might still be bad habits that you are unknowingly doing that are slowly damaging your teeth. Expand your knowledge. Read on and find out about the bad dental habits that you should be avoiding.
Sucking And Crunching
Drinking a nice cold drink with ice is a great way to cool you down in warm weather. What’s even better is that you can prolong that cool feeling by crunching and sucking on the ice. We’ve all done it at least once and others make a habit out of it. This habit of crunching and sucking on ice can cause microfractures on your teeth’s enamel. This can also fracture the teeth because of the ice’s brittleness and cold temperature. This type of damage is not limited to crunching on ice. Popcorn kernels expose your teeth to the same stress that can also lead to fractures. Stop this bad habit to avoid unwanted damage to your chompers.
Teeth Are Not Tools
Our teeth are awesome. They are tough, in fact they are the hardest part of our body, and they do their job very efficiently. To put it simply, our teeth are made for chewing food. What they are not meant to do is for opening bags of chips, opening beer bottles, trimming nails and holding small tools. Using your teeth to do things other than chewing can damage it. It can chip or you can fracture a tooth (or two). Make sure you use the right tools for those jobs and reserve your teeth for chewing food. Next time you think of opening that bag of chips using your teeth, use a scissor instead.
Man biting on beer can by Wikipedia.