Marco Island, FL Dentist Details Top Three Tips to Encourage Regular Flossing

As the most well-known component of maintaining one’s dental health, just about everyone brushes their teeth on a regular basis. Regular flossing is also a primary booster of dental health, yet many people do not incorporate it as part of their daily teeth cleaning regimen. In fact, some people only turn to flossing when a piece of food gets caught between their teeth.  

Dentists and dental hygienists across the country routinely discuss the importance of regular flossing during patient appointments. But no matter how much they extoll the health benefits of flossing, some of their patients remain resistant and reject including it as a standard regular dental hygiene practice. The Marco Island, Florida dental professionals at Island Tower Dentistry are familiar with this dynamic and report that a surprisingly high portion of their patient pool seems to resist including flossing as part of their daily dental regimen.     

The Known Benefits of Regular Flossing

While you have likely heard about the benefits of flossing on multiple occasions from your dentist, we’re going to repeat them here:

• Removes plaque and inhibits build-up of tartar
• Keeps gums healthy and impedes gum disease development
• Helps prevent tooth decay between teeth where the toothbrush cannot reach
• Helps prevent bad breath

Try to take these benefits to heart, and read on for our tips on how to make regular flossing a routine part of your daily dental care.

Tips to Help You Make Regular Flossing Routine

Create a visual prompter—This can be anything from a Post-It note on the bathroom mirror to the placement of the dental floss container on top of the toothbrush holder. The key here is to make sure the prompter cannot be ignored and that removing it from your sightline takes a conscious effort, which should further boost the power of the prompt. If you find that your chosen prompter is not working and that you find yourself ignoring the prompt with ease, consider taping the floss container to the toothpaste tube. It may seem silly, but if it works, it’s worth it!

Make floss readily available—similar to the visual prompter, simply purchase lots of floss and put the containers wherever you can’t help but notice them, and be reminded that flossing is important. Purchase different kinds of floss—waxed, unwaxed, tape, etc—and perhaps some of those flossing sticks, too. This might encourage flossing by making you think about how you haven’t tried that particular type of floss yet, and wondering whether you’ll like it better than the last used floss. 

Start the routine slowly—many dental experts encourage a slow start, to ease into the habit. Pick a day or two during the week that you will commit to conducting routine flossing. A lot of people who try this technique and stick to their commitment, find that they start enjoying the gum-massage and teeth-separation sensations, and find themselves starting to floss more often than their committed times, until it eventually becomes part of the daily dental care routine.

Learn More from Island Tower Dentistry!

If you are in the Southwest Florida area, the dental-care experts at Island Tower Dentistry would be glad to impart their words of dental wisdom to you in person, or otherwise tend to your dental care needs. To learn more about how the Island Tower team can help you maintain the best in oral health, contact us today at 239-394-1004 to make an appointment!