Brushing your teeth twice a day is essential for oral hygiene. The ritual of brushing your teeth in the morning can be an incredibly useful addition to your morning routine. Similarly, brushing your teeth at night can be made a part of your night routine, thus making it easy to keep track.
Yes, it sounds so simple, but there are so many people who struggle to find time to brush their teeth twice every day. A recent survey found that as many as 30% of millennials are only brushing their teeth once a day.
So how do you build a habit of brushing your teeth in the morning as well as at night every single day? This article discusses five practical steps you can apply right away to do so.
1. Set a reminder on your phone
Most phones today have a feature to set weekly recurring reminders. Make use of this feature and set two reminders on your phone every day — one in the morning and once at night.
If you live with roommates and are embarrassed they might see your reminder and make fun of you, feel free to use a secret code like “close the windows.” That way, they won’t know and you can start with your habit-building free of shame.
2. Make it the start and stop point
You can rewire your brain to look at brushing your teeth as the start and stop points of the period where you eat food. Your morning brushing session can be the starting point after which you will have breakfast. Similarly, after you have your last meal of the day, brushing your teeth will end the food cycle for the day, signaling your brain that it no longer requires food.
This can come in extremely handy if you are following any form of intermittent fasting. Since it’s not easy to eat at night after brushing, you can successfully stop all cravings for midnight snacks.
3. Hold yourself accountable
You can do this in the following two ways:
- Maintain your daily eating habits in a habit tracker and keep track of your progress. Seeing an unbroken streak will motivate you to push yourself harder and make it easy for you to incorporate this habit into your life.
- Hire an accountability coach to help you stick to your goals and make sure you don’t miss a day even when you’re tempted. These are trained professionals who will help you get back on track if you ever lose momentum somewhere down the line.
4. Make it fun and games
If you have a roommate, a partner, or small children in your house, you can make the morning and night-time rituals of brushing your teeth into a fun and games session. Doing it together will also help you bond over a shared activity and will make it difficult for you to find excuses.
If you have children, this can be an incredible learning opportunity for them. Good habits, as they say, should start when one is young.
5. Find brands that suit you
The toothbrush and paste you use can matter a long in this journey of finding ways to make brushing your teeth twice daily a part of your everyday life.
Spend some time, effort, and money into finding the brands that work best for you. This might be a long process and require some trial and error. But once you zero in on the brand that suits you the best, you’ll find it all the more fun to delve into this newfound ritual of yours.
At the end of the day, it all comes down to one word: determination. If you have made your mind strongly enough that you will brush your teeth twice a day no matter what, no force in the world can stop you from doing so. You are stronger than your excuses. It’s time you believed that.