What is the Proper Way to Floss?
Most of us know the importance of flossing after we brush our teeth. Although a toothbrush does a very good job of keeping your teeth clean and healthy, there is really no way to clean those hard-to-reach spaces between your teeth other than by flossing your teeth. If you don’t floss your teeth, you will miss more than 1/3 of your tooth surface!
Although most people floss their teeth on a regular basis, a lot of people don’t understand proper flossing technique. By understanding how to floss your teeth correctly, you will be able to remove plague from the spaces between your teeth much more effectively.
Here is how to properly floss your teeth:
- Cut off a piece of floss that is about 45cm long (about 18 inches) and wrap it tightly around the middle fingers of each of your hands.Don’t worry about the piece being too long. If you’ve been to the dentist’s, you’ll notice the dentist uses a very long piece of floss, and that is how much you should be using as well.
- After you’ve wrapped the floss around each middle finger, grip the floss with your thumb and forefinger of each hand and have a firm, tight grip on the floss.
- Gently guide the floss downwards into the space between two of your teeth, and curve it into a C-shape against each tooth so that you thoroughly clean through the space.
- Repeat this process for all the spaces between your teeth.It helps to work through your teeth one at a time in a pattern that works around the whole of your mouth so that you don’t miss any one tooth.
- Make sure to use up the entire piece of floss by rotating the floss between your middle fingers so that a clean portion of the floss is always being used. Don’t re-use the same portion of the floss to clean more than one area between your teeth.
It is recommended to floss your teeth once a day (typically at night before bed, because that is when there is the most food residue left behind in your mouth).
Flossing your teeth regularly is a very important part of keeping your teeth healthy and clean, so make sure to keep up with flossing every day.