How to clean the tongue and the importance of doing it

Knowing how to clean your tongue is essential to fight bad breath and bacteria in your mouth. See how to do it right.

Brushing your teeth is a fundamental routine to ensure good oral health. However, oral hygiene is not complete if you do not know how to clean the tongue properly.

Knowing how to clean your tongue is the first step to avoiding bad breath and the development of bacteria in the mouth. Understand better.

How to clean the tongue and the importance of doing it

First of all, it is important to explain in more detail why it is so important to know how to clean your tongue.

The tongue contains bacteria and food particles that form a thin layer of mucus. This layer of mucus causes, among other problems, bad breath, hence the need to remove it.

Tongue cleaning should be a daily habit, just like brushing your teeth. So you should clean your tongue at least twice a day, preferably morning and night.

Techniques for cleaning the tongue

If you don’t know how to clean your tongue, we’ll explain some ways to do it. The simplest and most basic is to use the toothbrush you brush your teeth with to scrub your tongue.

To do this, you can use a little toothpaste along with the brush’s own bristles or with the tongue cleaner that some brushes have on the back of the head. Toothbrush.

Start cleaning the tongue from the back of it until you reach the front, close to the mouth opening. After gently brushing the surface of the tongue, rinse with water.

You can also rinse with an elixir, in order to reinforce the hydration of the mouth and to eliminate the bacteria that persist in the tongue.

The tongue cleaner is an item that specifically serves to clean the tongue. This cleaner is usually made of a flexible and soft plastic, which also allows you to remove the whitish layer of mucus present on the tongue.

You should use the cleaner gently to avoid hurting your tongue or causing bleeding. Insist more on the central region of the tongue, since it is the area with the highest concentration of bacteria. At the end, wash off the cleaner thoroughly with hot water.

Benefits

The tongue cleaner/scraper can bring many benefits to the individual’s oral health, as it contributes to:

• reduce bad breath;
• decrease the bacteria present in the mouth;
• improve taste;
• avoid tooth decay and gum disease.

How to use?

To correctly use the tongue cleaner/scraper, you must follow the next step by step:

1. stick your tongue out.
2. place the most rounded part of the cleaner/scraper towards the throat.
3. gently pull the cleaner/scraper to the tip of the tongue to remove plaque.
4. keep sanitizing the cleaner/scraper with water, as you remove the mucus layer.

contraindications

There are individuals who should not use the tongue cleaner/scraper, particularly in case of:

Go to the dentist

Sometimes, the whitish plaque present on the tongue can be a sign of diseases, such as oral candidiasis.

Thus, if cleaning the tongue is not enough to eliminate this layer of mucus and bad breath, then you should consult a dentist, so that your case is evaluated by a specialist.