New Years Resolutions for dentally aware

It would be great if we could reflect; review and change all our bad habits each New Year!
How would your dental friendly resolutions look?

• Cut out snacks between meals
• No more sugar soft drinks
• Chocolate banned from the pantry
• Two minutes cleaning twice a day - timed!
• Flossing and picksters each day for those hard to get places
• New electric toothbrush and change brush heads every 2 months

But year to year people make New Year's resolutions and find they are so hard keep.
That is because our behavior is largely automatic and easy. Otherwise we would be mentally exhausted each day expending energy on new and better ways of acting, behaving and thinking.

Some of the dental habits we would like to change are driven by emotion. Do you eat less healthy when you are tired or sad or rushed? Don't punish yourself but see if you can find an alternative way to make yourself feel better.

If you want to alter teeth cleaning for improved gums then look at a totally different system e.g. A new Electric Toothbrush; or change hands or change the sequence of brushing.

Best of luck with your new year's resolutions - let us know what works best for you.

Revised: 1 January 2017