Train your brain to Get Excellent Oral Health

Our daily routines like getting up in the morning, getting dressed, and going to work are rarely any different. The similar is our nighttime routine, which involves putting on our pajamas and getting in our bed at the earliest. In both of them rarely do we care about our oral hygiene. Most of us do not floss as we believe it is a waste of our time. Many of us don’t even brush before going to bed, as it decreases the amount of sleep we might get.

How do you set up a loop?

The reason that we skip our nighttime brushing is that we’re set on a loop. According to experts, a loop is set on the basis of three elements, cue, routine, and rewards. Here, the cue becomes our willingness to sleep, the routine becomes us putting on our sleepwear, and the reward becomes the extra sleep we’re going to get for missing the brushing routine.

As a result, it may become extremely difficult to change this loop unless we train our brain to do otherwise.

How to train your brain for a new routine?

It may take several days for you to settle into your new habit, but with the following steps, the task can be easier.

  1. Increase the rewards

For now, our set reward is to get extra sleep time by skipping the brushing and flossing. However, you can set more rewards for yourself for keeping the brushing routine in. If you brush your teeth before going to bed for three days, you can give yourself a small reward. You can follow the same process of flossing as well. Give yourself a big reward at the end of three weeks.

  1. Keep a record

Another thing that may help in training your brain is to keep a record of your oral hygiene. You can set up a chart where you mark whether you’ve brushed and flossed that day. This will help you in keeping a track of both your health, as well as your rewards.

  1. Set alarms

You can set an alarm for every night which will remind you to brush your teeth on time. You can also set a few of them at the intervals of 5 minutes each if you tend to snooze or skip them. If you’re not the one for alarms, you can start your nighttime routine a bit early as well to include brushing in it.

  1. Educate yourself

One of the biggest methods to train your brain is to educate it about the benefits of good oral hygiene. Every time you see yourself failing, think about the benefits of it to pick up this habit again.

  1. Ask for help

There’s no shame in asking for help even if you’re an adult. You can ask your friends and family or people you live with to remind to brush and floss before you go to bed. Not only they’ll help you remember, but they’ll also keep you motivated to not stop.

Author
Bello Dental

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