Fitness: The concept of fitness is one that most people understand. They know that you don’t get fit by going to a gym on a Monday, and then spending Tuesday through Sunday smoking, drinking, and eating ice cream. Most people know that there is no magic pill that delivers fitness. Fitness is a process which includes a variety of behaviors and actions – a process that requires commitment and discipline.
Connect the Dots: But here are some dots that most people don’t readily connect. Many of the serious diseases that afflict our bodies can be linked to unattended oral issues. In other words, overall health or fitness cannot be maintained without having a fit mouth to match your fit body.
When considering athletes, we all understand their workout regimens. They practice their events, they strength train, they train aerobically, and they watch what they eat and drink. Diligently engaging in all of those collected behaviors produces a level of fitness commensurate with their degree of diligence.
The same holds true with having a fit mouth. There are a number of oral training behaviors, practices, and habits that one should engage in, if having a truly healthy, fit mouth is the goal. Below are the things that encompass our mouth fitness workout program. Diligently following these behaviors will greatly improve your level of oral fitness and contribute to your overall systemic health as well.
The Mouth Fitness Workout
Step 1.
- Begin by pre-cleaning your teeth before brushing them to loosen trapped food particles. You can use a Waterpik, a toothpick, floss, or a gum brush. If none of these items are handy, simply swishing your mouth vigorously with a sip of water will help.
Step 2.
- Next brush all the surfaces of your teeth – ideally with a sonic toothbrush. First brush your inside lower teeth, then your inside upper teeth, followed by the outside areas of your teeth. Next brush these 5 important, but neglected, areas of your mouth that no one ever tells you to brush, but which can harbor bacterial biofilms that can cause you harm, if allowed to grow unfettered:
1. the insides of your cheeks
2. the inside of your lips
3. your tongue
4. the underside of your tongue
5. your hard palate (sometimes called the roof of your mouth)
Step 3.
- Rinse your mouth with water and then use a tongue scraper – making sure to reach the farthest back portion on top of your tongue, where 80% of the bad breath causing bacteria collect. Your gag reflex will dissipate over time as you get used to this practice.
Step 4.
- Now rinse your entire mouth again using a solution of diluted hydrogen peroxide (1 part peroxide to 3 parts water). Do this for 4, ten-second swishes, and then rinse again with plain water.
Step 5.
- Using a probiotic paste, give your teeth a final quick brushing that will leave a layer of probiotic bacteria in your mouth – kind of like waxing your car after you wash it. You shouldn’t rinse this off, but rather allow it to stay in your mouth to maximize its benefits.
Step 6
- Each morning and evening, after you’ve completed this regimen, place an oral probiotic lozenge on your tongue and allow it to slowly dissolve in your mouth.
Step 7
- During the day, you can also add green tea lozenges to your mouth fitness workout regimen, to help keep your mouth bacterially balanced. Green tea is a natural inhibitor of bad bacteria, and as such serves as a kind of booster shot between cleanings.
- Alternatively, you can add xylitol based lozenges instead. Xylitol is a naturally occurring compound that works as a pre-biotic, (something which nourishes good bacteria). In xylitol’s case, it also keeps bad bacteria from being able to stick to your teeth, while also inhibiting their ability to produce teeth harming acids.
Either Feed Disease or Fight It.
Another extremely critical variable in your ability to maintain a fit mouth is the issue of diet. It has been said that what you eat and drink has the effect of either feeing disease or fighting it. Foods that are high in acidity can dramatically affect the health of your mouth by affecting the overall pH climate of your mouth. pH reflects the measure of acidity in your body and, generally speaking, an acidic mouth will encourage the growth of bad bacteria. That means a steady diet of foods that increase acidity is bad for your oral fitness level. We’ve shown you this chart before – but here it is again
