Does your morning routine include flossing your teeth? If not, you’re not alone! Fact is 1 out of 5 Americans never floss at all! Today, we want to give you a couple of reasons to making flossing a part of your routine.

Motivate Yourself to Floss

Brushing your teeth alone doesn’t clean your teeth. Toothbrushes only clean roughly 3 out of the 5 surfaces of every tooth. That means you’re never cleaning around 40% of your teeth if you’re not flossing. Gross! Food gunk often gets stuck in between your teeth, which not only ruins your smile, it becomes ground for bacteria in your mouth to grow and multiply. Not flossing will lead to gum irritation and periodontal disease, something no one wants to experience.

We understand the number one reason people don’t floss is because it takes a lot of time. We get it! That’s why we’re banding together, to show you how to do a fantastic job flossing in less than a minute!

Learn to Floss in Less than a Minute

Understanding how to floss correctly is important to flossing quickly with little to no effort. If already you floss, here’s where you can tell you’ve been flossing right! Here’s what you should be doing.

First, take your floss, and stretch it out about a foot in length. Once you’ve done that, you want to wrap the floss around both of your middle fingers, until you have about an inch to work with. Holding it with your thumb and index fingers, gently slide the floss in a gentle back and forth motion between the teeth with a curved motion. Sliding the floss gently is key, as our gums don’t appreciate torture as you dig into them. As you continue to move from tooth to tooth, open the floss to a clean section and repeat until you’re finished. Sounds easy, right? With practice, you’ll get the movement down and finish flossing in less than a minute, every day.

Helpful Tips for Flossing

Flossing is great, as noted above, but we cannot ignore some crucial details. When flossing, you want to make sure that you’re paying attention to the floss, as it’ll tell a story about your teeth.

Consider the color and smell of the floss. When you move down the floss wire, you want to make sure you’ve thoroughly cleaned between one pair of teeth before moving onto the next one. While flossing may not be quicker, it will certainly be better.

Taking time afterwards to look at your teeth in the mirror will help notice any bigger problems. Bleeding gums are common after flossing for the first time in ages, but can happen for two reasons. Aside from digging too far into your gums while flossing, you may be victim to gingivitis or periodontal disease. Normally, you’ll be able to notice the difference between the two reasons over time. If your gums don’t stop bleeding out every time you floss, consult with a periodontist at once for further help.

Lastly, stick to regular flossing. We cannot stress enough why flossing is just as important as brushing your teeth. Daily flossing is enough to keep periodontal disease at bay and have a healthy and refreshing mouth. We challenge you to floss daily, to fight off gum inflammation and nasty growing bacteria.