Your teeth are crucial to living a healthy and happy life. There is a harsh reality that you may have several habits that can have a negative impact on your teeth. This can mean painful and time consuming procedures that are often very expensive to repair. By understanding what these problems are, you will be more aware to stop these habits. Here is a close look at 5 of the most common habits that can be very harmful to your teeth.
- Biting your Nails
Biting your nails can actually be one of the worst things that you can do to your teeth. This is something that can chip your teeth as well as cause a type of jaw dysfunction. In fact, anytime you use your teeth to bite anything that isn’t food you are running the risk of damaging your teeth. Think about those tags you bite off to save time from finding scissors. It can lead to the same negative side effects as if you were just biting your nails, though it can be worse depending on what materials you are biting into.
- Not Protecting Your Teeth While Playing Sports
You may think that you only need a tooth guard when you are participating in such contact sports as hockey and football. The fact is that any activity can cause injury to your teeth. For instance, if you go skateboarding without a mouth guard, you can easily fall down and crack your tooth. You could play soccer and end up knocking a tooth out due to contact. These are some examples that you may not have considered.
- Brushing Your Teeth Too Hard
If you use a toothbrush that is too hard for your teeth or you put too much pressure on your teeth, this is something that is very harmful to your teeth. Not only can this damage the teeth but it will also irritate your gums, causing you a great deal of discomfort. You can avoid this by ensuring that you have bought a soft bristled toothbrush that is ADA approved. You should also think of brushing your teeth as more of a massage than a brush, to help you apply the proper amount of pressure.
- Chewing Ice Cubes
This is a simple case of science. Whenever you pit two hard and sharp objects against each other, you are going to end up with one of them getting broken. Most of the time the ice gets broken but you do run the risk of breaking or chipping your tooth when chewing ice.
- Grinding and Clenching Your Teeth
Often times, these are things that people do at nighttime without realizing they are doing and this is something that can be caused by stress. Grinding and clenching your teeth can cause cracking or chipping of your tooth as well as pain in your jaw. You can try relaxation exercises to destress before bed to help prevent this from happening. If that doesn’t work, getting a mouth guard for sleeping can also be helpful. If you do this habit while you are awake, become more aware that you are doing it to help prevent it from happening.