The goal of preventive dentistry is to maintain healthy teeth and gums, and to prevent oral illnesses. Proper diet and plaque control will help you to safeguard yourself against dental decay and keep healthy set of teeth for your whole life. Involvement in your own dental health is the key when practicing preventive dentistry.
Top 10 Ways to Practice Preventive Dentistry
1) Brush twice a day. Preventive dentistry begins at home. Brushing is essential for cleaning teeth and gums effectively. When done properly, brushing removes plaque from the surfaces of your teeth. To brush properly:
Use a toothbrush with soft nylon and rounded bristles to prevent your brush from scratching your tooth enamel. Gently brush the outer tooth surfaces of your teeth using a circular motion. Be sure to gently brush in an up and down motion along all of the inner tooth surfaces and gumline. Don't forget to brush behind your teeth and along the biting surfaces. Remember, do not share toothbrushes with others - it can spread germs. Replace your toothbrush every 3-4 months.
2) Floss. If you are serious about preventive dentistry, brushing is not enough. Even the most careful brushing reaches only three-fifths of all tooth surfaces. Dental floss gets to areas that the brush cannot - between teeth and along the gumline. If your gums bleed or feel tender from flossing, don't be alarmed. This reaction is the sign of the healing process.
3) Eat a balanced diet. It should be no surprise that your nutritional intake is imperative to preventive dentistry. A balanced diet must contain carbohydrate, protein, fat, vitamins, mineral salts and fiber and it must contain these things in the correct proportions. If you do not eat a balanced diet you are more likely to get tooth decay and gum disease.
4) Limit between-meal snacking. Preventive dentistry focuses on obstructing problems before they happen. Every time you put food in your mouth you give plaque the opportunity to form. Do not give it a chance to develop. If you do snack, choose nutritious foods such as cheese, raw vegetables, plain yogurt or fruit. Plaque uses sugar and starch to produce acids that can destroy your tooth enamel. Steer clear of sugary foods, and if you must eat them try to do so during a meal, when saliva can help wash them away.
5) Do not smoke. Rather than focusing on repairing damage to gums, tooth enamel and tooth color that is caused by this habit, practice preventive dentistry and steer clear of smoking. Smoking can also lead to even more serious problems such as oral cancer.
6) See your dentist twice a year for cleaning and exam. Even if you brush and floss properly, there is no substitute for a professional cleaning. Dentist can remove tartar buildup that regular brushing and flossing are incapable of. Preventive dentistry is about stopping problems before they start or intercepting problems at the earliest stage possible. Don't wait until your teeth hurt to visit your dentist. Tooth decay does not normally hurt, that is, until it gets close to the nerve of the tooth.
7) Ask your dentist for sealants. This method of preventive dentistry closes the natural pits and fissures in teeth, keeping bacteria, plaque and cavities from developing.
8) Get a bite evaluation. Controlling your biting force is a preventive dentistry measure to avoid premature wear on your teeth. If you have a problem your dentist can help you correct it before the damage becomes severe.
9) Restore damaged, broken, worn or missing teeth. While these measures may seem retroactive, taking care of existing issues is actually a method of preventive dentistry. Like anything else, current problems only get worse when they are not attended to and in oral health, those problems can lead to others not only in your mouth, but throughout the rest of your body including vital organs and your central nervous system.
10) Educate yourself. The essence of preventive dentistry is your awareness and action. While your dentist can advise you, visits to the office happen only a few times a year. The rest of the year is left up to you. Make sure to ask your dentist for his or her advice regarding preventive dentistry and most of all, make the commitment to carrying it out.
1) Looking for the top 10 ways to effectively practice piano?
Let us start by admitting piano practice isn't always fun. At times, it can be as grueling a task as mopping the floor or teaching your York Terrier to roll over (even when he hasn't done it for the hundredth time). The key thing about piano practice however, is that it isn't really supposed to fun -- it's supposed to improve your skills. That doesn't mean that practicing the piano **can't** be fun. We've even written an article describing how to **make** it fun. This article however, focuses on how to make practice more effective. And effective practice often accompanies a little thing we like to call, "dedication."
2) Plan your practice time and set goals.
Yup - as with every thing else under the sun, perfection at the piano requires a dedicated set time of practice. So take a look at your schedule and **make** time (don't 'squeeze' time) to practice. Make sure that this time slot is uninterrupted and void of frivolous phone calls or visits from friends and family. Put the terrier in the back yard and unplug the phone. This is how to build "you" time, or more correctly, time to strengthen the love affair between you and your instrument. On such a lovely date, you may want to finally figure out a passage that has been troubling you, or you may want build your basic skills. If it will help, write into your schedule book, the task that you'd like to master on each day that you practice. That way when you look at your planner, you'll remember how even Beethoven started out!
3) Play With Your Metronome.
Don't forget the metronome. Metronomes are designed to strengthen your rhythm skills and if you insist on playing without one, you're destined to produce inconsistent music (no matter how well you can count). Put your trust into the mechanics of a metronome and you'll stay on beat, every time.
4) Get Smooth
After a while, you may notice that your metronome is getting on your nerves. If so, chances are you've either got it turned up too loud, or you've advanced so much, you're ready to concentrate on other aspects of piano music -- like smoothness for example. During this phase of your lessons, your rhythm and timing have obviously improved, and now you're more interested in playing with emotion than following a steady beat. This doesn't mean that the metronome is useless however. It simply means that you can start focusing on letting your music flow. Turn the metronome down to its lowest level and refer to it only when you're nervous about getting off beat.
5) Practice in front of others.
Talk about getting nervous! Failing to regularly play in front of others will only turn you into a master among one: (yourself)! Get used to entertaining small crowds and you'll eventually gain the courage to play for a crowd of a thousand. With just a few more years of experience, you'll soon solo at the symphony!
6) Kill the mistakes.
This is where practicing in front of others really pays off because if you make a mistake, you can be sure you'll hear about it. And as daunting as this may seem, it's actually a good thing. You certainly want to catch and correct mistakes before you solidify them as a permanent fixture in a public performance.
7) Practice Every Day
Yes, even when you're tired, grumpy, or just plain don't feel good, you must practice every day. You don't have to produce a masterpiece every time you sit down to play the piano, but you can at least run through the drills. This will help keep your fingers limber and your pedal-work coordinated with your hands. Of course when you're feeling up to it, go on and rock the house! Just don't skip a day. Not even one. The masters didn't!
8) Work the Right Hand.
Since the right hand often plays the most intricate part of a song, you'll want to exercise it as much as possible. Take it slow if need be and then speed up to the right tempo when you're ready.
9) Speed It Up
There's an interesting theory in the piano community that claims playing faster, increases skills. This is a theory of course that only works after you've mastered a piece at tempo you're comfortable with. And it's idea claims that "speed playing" makes music appear easier to play than it really is.
10) Chill
You'll never master the piano if you continuously play it while tense, angry, or nervous. Certain pieces of music require that its musicians relax. If you never learn how to relax during practice, your tense, angry, or nervous condition will eventually become your personal playing style. And the music that you play will instill the same condition within your audience. Yikes! Learn how to relax your wrist, hands, shoulders and arms. Find a comfortable position and learn how to smile while you're playing. Yes, playing the piano is hard work, but it should never be forced.
Record Yourself.
Strengthen both your playing and listening skills by recording yourself playing the piano. Depending on how good you are, you may be in for a pleasant or terrifying experience. If the former - don't stop improving. If the latter - don't give up. After enough practice, you'll improve on your own without the aid of a tape recorder -- and you'll do so the instant that you press a key.
Both Jd Theis.. & Brian Shelton are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
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