8 holistic methods to improve oral health

Our oral health says a lot about our health as a whole, often reflecting what is happening further down in the gut. Modern dentists tell us that the only answer to long-lasting teeth is avoiding sugar, flossing, using fluoride toothpaste and getting regular checkups. But what if, by taking care of ourselves holistically, we were able to boost our oral health without the input from chemicals or dental surgery?

From oil pulling to paying attention to what type of brush you are using, your oral hygiene routine massively affects the mouth environment. Far too many people jump to harsh chemicals such as conventional toothpaste, mouthwash and standard flossing tools. Being conscious of what you use, what you put in your mouth, as well as your breathing, can all play a role. In this article we'll dive into simple changes you can make to massively improve your oral health. Let's dive in.

1. Chewing

Modern diets have led a lot of people to hardly ever chew their food. Modern packaged foods have been cooked, processed and turned to mush. If you rarely eat whole foods, then your chewing time is probably very minimal. But chewing is crucial for our jaw, teeth, gums and overall oral health. When we chew we are breaking down food not just with our teeth but also with our saliva, the first step in the digestion process, and where we absorb some nutrients through our gums.

When we switch to whole foods and begin chewing again, this can greatly benefit our palate and gums, ensuring no spacial issues and strong gums. The first step to chewing more, then, is to switch to a mostly whole foods diet. Next, is to purposely chew your foods more to help break them down and aid digestion. Incorporating things like mastic gum (tree sap from the Greek Chios islands) can get us used to chewing again and improve not just our oral health but gut health too.

2. Mouth taping and nasal breathing 

Mouth taping and strictly nasal breathing isn’t just about improving sleep quality, it also helps jaw and palate alignment as well as ensuring a proper oral environment is kept, which improves oral health through a number of factors. Exposing your mouth to every dust particle and drying it out isn’t a good idea when it comes to keeping the bacteria in your mouth balanced and healthy.

Nasal breathing leads to better tongue position which ensures proper palate layout as well as expansion if needed, when the tongue rarely spends any time at the top of the mouth, our jaw and face as a whole can drop. The combination of rarely chewing and always mouth breathing exacerbates this change and over time leads to bad oral health. Nasal breathing can also help with what is called your carbon dioxide tolerance, which when increased can have profound effects on your overall health.

3. Natural teeth cleaners

If you weren't yet aware, fluoride is a neurotoxin, so we most definitely want to avoid using toothpaste with it in (the same goes for tap water). But unfortunately, fluoride is just one of many ingredients in toothpastes that are outright toxic. Instead of exposing our highly absorbent gums to these chemicals, we can turn to natural alternatives.

These can range from coconut oil, simple and effective, being antimicrobial, to eggshell powder and baking soda, all of which can help you clean your teeth without the use of hormone disruptors. The same goes for flossing. We should absolutely be flossing, but not with plastic string; instead, using natural silk. Contrary to popular belief we do not need to rely on fluoride to prevent cavities, instead we need to ensure good diet, gut health and nasal breathing.

4. Natural toothbrush

Most toothbrushes are made from plastic, and many people are unknowingly releasing microplastics into their mouth every time they brush their teeth. Not to mention the contribution to plastic waste that plastic toothbrushes bring. Even most bamboo alternatives unfortunately have plastic bristles. Switching to a natural option such as wooden or bamboo brushes with boar hair bristles is a much better alternative.

Electric tooth brushes are very often made using plastic too, with very little options to choose a more natural brush head, so switching to the older manual style of brushing is needed here but can also help you be more present while bushing!

5. Oil Pulling

Most people will turn to mouthwash to cleanse their mouth, but a far more effective and extremely powerful tool for oral health is oil pulling, the main choice being coconut oil. Coconut oil is a powerful antimicrobial and using it orally can really help improve the type of bacteria lingering in your mouth.

Place a teaspoon, or a tablespoon in your mouth, allow it to melt, and swish it around, pulling the oil through your teeth for 10–20 minutes. This is also a great time to practice nasal breathing.

6. Tongue scraping

Chewing more and nasal breathing can both help ensure your tongue spends more time in the proper position, but we also need to pay attention to how our tongue looks. Seeing a white coating on your tongue signals candida overgrowth. Where you want to focus to remove this is mainly on your gut health, through antimicrobials such as propolis but we can also turn to tongue scraping.

Using a copper tongue scraper can help remove volatile sulphur compounds, which are produced by bad bacteria and cause bad breath. It also helps remove the bad bacteria and improve sense of taste.

7. Minerals & nutrients

We all know how important the mineral calcium is for teeth, but most people still aren't getting enough calcium in their diet, along with other key minerals such as magnesium and chloride. Remineralisation of teeth is achievable through proper nutrition and, crucially, ensuring sufficient mineral intake. Swishing magnesium chloride around the mouth can help the teeth uptake magnesium and drinking raw milk can help maximise calcium intake. Eggshells can also be consumed to increase calcium intake.

Then we want to ensure we are getting enough key nutrients for oral health such as vitamins D, K and C and can be gotten from sunshine, raw dairy and fruit respectively.

8. Working on your gut health

We've covered it so many times on here, but again the gut comes into play. Sorting your gut health will have profound effects on your oral health, the oral-gut axis is just as strong as the gut-skin axis.

As briefly mentioned above, assessing your tongue for candida overgrowth is one place to start, but if you have any of the typical bad gut health signs, such as bad skin, bloating, indigestion, brain fog etc. then focusing on your gut needs to come first.

Ensuring beneficial strains of bacteria from raw milk, yoghurt, cheese and fermented vegetables can all help improve the microbiome and therefore gut health.

What to keep in mind

We're so often told that we cannot do anything about our oral health other than brush, floss and go to the dentist. But our oral health, as is with our overall health, is holistic, one area of our body doesn't operate separately from the other. Everything that happens in the body has a direct impact on our all areas of our health. So ensuring you are creating the best environment for your teeth, gums and tongue can massively improve your oral health and longevity. If your oral health is currently good, use these tips to keep on top of it. If not, then you now have the tools to begin to reverse things and get them heading back in the right direction.