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Young woman shows How To Brush Your Teeth

How To Brush Your Teeth: An Extensive Guide

Knowing how to brush your teeth is important since brushing your teeth prevents bad breath and cavities, but your toothbrush only makes the movements you make.

So you need to know how and where to guide your toothbrush through your mouth properly. Here is our guide.

How To Brush Your Teeth Properly?

Whether you brush with a manual or electric toothbrush, the basics are the same.

Instructions On How To Brush Your Teeth

First, let’s divide the mouth into 4 quadrants: upper right (1), upper left (2), lower left (3) and lower right (4). Each quadrant needs about 30 seconds of brushing to get clean, and during this time the fluoride in the toothpaste can do its job.

When you start brushing it is best to start with the difficult areas, being the molars in the back of your mouth.

Since you are likely to lose your will to brush properly while brushing for 2 minutes, it is best to start with the difficult parts first.

To be able to brush your teeth without thinking, it is a good habit to move through each quadrant by the same sequence every time you brush.

Try to clean each quadrant individually, as the upper and lower quadrants often overlap, causing you to miss areas of your lower or upper quadrant, especially around the chewing areas. Clean the outside, inside and chewing surfaces of your teeth.

When you are done with your teeth, also gently brush the gums and especially focus on the gum lines.

Manual vs Electric Toothbrush

There is a profound difference between brushing your teeth with a manual toothbrush or an electric toothbrush.

Manual Toothbrush

Image of the proper brushing angle

Always use a soft bristle manual toothbrush, you can only damage your teeth and gums when using a medium or hard bristle.

Try to keep your toothbrush at a 45-degree angle on your teeth and make a rotating motion. Try to put not too much pressure on your brush, as this can damage your teeth and gums.

Make sure to change your brush, both manual and electric, every 3 months!

Watch this video on how to use a manual brush:

Electric toothbrush

Electric brushing removes more plaque than manual brushing, since the brush head makes more movements (rotating/oscillating and pulsating) than your manual brush, and it does so at a higher frequency.

Since the brush is doing the work for you, you can focus on brush placement. Like with a manual toothbrush, try to angle the brush at approximately 45 degrees towards the gum line, since this will improve the performance of the brush.

Place the brush against your teeth and move it slowly over each tooth. Don’t make movements as you would with a manual brush, as the brush does this work for you.

Move the brush head along the gum lines, as these are the areas where plaque is most likely to form. To prevent damage, don’t put too much pressure on the brush. New

Move the brush head along the gum lines, as these are the areas where plaque is most likely to form. To prevent damage, don’t put too much pressure on the brush.

New High-end electric toothbrushes have pressure senses that will inform you when too much pressure is applied.

Make sure to change your brush, both manual and electric, every 3 months!

How Do You Know Whether You’ve Cleaned Your Teeth Properly?

What you can do to check whether you have properly cleaned your teeth is to get plaque disclosing tablets, which you chew on after brushing your teeth.

This temporarily (so use it before going to bed) colors the teeth when plaque is present. Fun and good practice for you and for the kids!

How To Clean Your Teeth Up To 70% Better?

Using floss can really add to your dental care. Especially water floss devices are easy to use and really remove plaque very efficiently!

Watch this video from Philips on how to use a sonic electric toothbrush: