Based on research, our mouth is one of the most important parts of our body. Having bad oral habits can lead to extremely painful on both of our bodies and our wallets. Bad oral habits include a wide range of habits including, thumb sucking, smoking, brushing too hard, biting or crunching ice, sipping too much sugar, and nail biting among others.
Thumb sucking – is the most recognized oral habit that affects the growth of every child’s jaws and teeth. Children who tend to suck their thumb or finger are prone to having misaligned teeth. If your child continues to suck their thumb or fingers it will cause their front teeth to protrude as your child develops and create a deformity in their mouth and dents. Thumb sucking can be triggered by various things, so it is important to be aware of this problem. Normally, thumb sucking stops at the age of 2 to 4 years old. It’s either you gently remind your child to avoid thumb sucking or consult a dentist if you think it will help you or your child.
Smoking Cigarette – our generation is prone to smoking tobacco and this is a major problem of having bad oral habit. It would put an individual’s life to risk. Smoking is one of the most dangerous behaviors because it doesn’t only causes tooth discoloration and bad breath, but it can also reduce jawbone density, gum disease, inflamed salivary glands and oral cancer. If you want to stop yourself from smoking but you can’t do it, you must consult a doctor for dental teeth whitening or seek help from your family and friends about the most effective ways to conquer the demon.
Brushing too hard – or brushing your teeth with immense pressure can lead to hypersensitivity and loss of tooth structure near the roots. It’s indeed important to brush our teeth everyday but brushing too hard can harm your tooth, brushing aggressively can also irritate your gums so you have to brush your teeth lightly. Aside from brushing lightly make sure you use a toothbrush that has soft bristles, which helps you more.
Biting or crunching ice – you may think that ice can be soothing but no. Unfortunately, it can wreak havoc on your teeth. Ice causes the teeth to split and dehydrate, which ultimately leads to cracking and tooth fractures. If you expose your teeth to extreme cold of ice it can increase the temperature sensitivity in it and just by eating ice, you can destroy your teeth, we don’t want that to happen. Your teeth are not built to crunching ice so you better stop that habit of yours before it’s too late.
Too much sugar – it’s obviously understandable that sugar is bad for our dental health. Cavities happen when the bacteria of your mouth digests sugar and produce acid and this weakens your tooth enamel. The bacteria in our mouth grow on sugar and causes plaque to be produced at a much quicker rate. It will be difficult to remove tartar that leads to tooth and gum decay. As much as possible, prevent yourself from eating sugar such as candy and to constantly stop the habit of drinking sodas and sugar juices, choose the most hydrating and mouth healthy option one like water.
Nail biting – biting your nails can harm your oral health as our hands are prone to having germs. Individuals who tend to bite anything other than food are at higher risk of cracking and chipping teeth and also it invites other bacteria that would lead to sickness and infection. No matter how many times you wash your hands, it is still difficult to pull all the germs out under your nails. To constantly prevent this habit, cut your nails short, it’s not fun biting your nails when they are short or just keep both of your hands and mouth busy.