Some Advice for The New Year

When you feel healthy, you enjoy your life. You have more energy for your goals and for the people you love. You take care of yourself, and the world, more actively and with joy. But when you feel unwell, it affects your life in every way. That’s why taking care of your health is so important, and your oral health is an essential part of this. Poor oral health can lead to a variety of diseases, illnesses and symptoms that negatively impact your overall mood and wellbeing. To help you maintain your oral health, and your overall health, we’ve created this quick guide.

Why Your Oral Health is Important to Your Overall Wellbeing

The human mouth is a surprisingly dirty place. It teems with all different types of bacteria that are kept under control most of the time by good oral hygiene practices and the immune system. However, if these bacteria get out of control, it can lead to infection and variety of overall health problems. It can also have an important impact on your mood, your sense of wellbeing, and even your overall enjoyment of the world.

As Dr. Amrinder says, “Your mouth is like a gateway to your health. If you have a clean mouth, you feel healthier, and you enjoy food more because the taste and smell of it are better.” These are good arguments for improving your oral health, but the consequences of poor oral health might provide even greater motivation.

Oral Health and Your Immune System

Your immune system needs to be strong enough to fight off all the infections and bacteria it encounters during your day to day life. If your immune system is weak, you will get sick more easily and suffer worse than you would if your immune system was healthy.

Unfortunately, studies have shown that poor oral health causes a build-up of plaque around the teeth that can lead to infection and inflammation. If this situation is not treated, it weakens your immune system, which both makes the original infection worse and makes it more likely that you will get sick from other causes. It may even cause or exacerbate serious, lifelong conditions like arthritis, ulcers and appendicitis.

Travelling Infections

Infections in your mouth can also damage more than your smile. Because you’re breathing in the infection, it can spread to your lungs and cause pneumonia, or travel in your bloodstream to your heart. If it does travel to your heart, this can result in infections that can be life-threatening or cause long term damage.

There is even some suggestion that ongoing infections may be responsible for cardiovascular disease. The list of complications of poor oral health goes on, and can have a devastating effect on your overall health, and even result in premature death.

Maintaining your Oral Health

If you want to avoid all of these potential problems you need to maintain good oral health. Take the following steps to keep your mouth as healthy as it can be: