Let’s face it.. very few people like to floss.

It takes time. It’s finicky. It can be hard to do around bridges, and between very tight teeth. Often, we leave it to the end of the day when we are tired and just want to get to bed.

Like any other beneficial health practice (such as eating right, or exercising), it takes time to turn a new chore into a habit.

If you consistently push yourself to floss once a day, at a specific time every day, after 21 days, you should have developed flossing successfully as a habit.

Many of us go out of our way to buy an electric toothbrush. But did you know that even the best electric toothbrush, used effectively, only removes 60% of plaque and food debris from your teeth. The other 40% can only be removed with proper flossing technique.

So why is flossing so important?

Flossing is the only effective way of removing bacteria, plaque, and food debris from between your teeth. If not removed, the bacteria between your teeth will ferment the food debris producing an acid that damages and eventually destroys the enamel, dentin and cementum of your teeth.

Flossing is also vital to disrupting the bacterial beneath your gum line that cause gum disease.

To quote one of my mentors, “You only have to floss the teeth that you want to keep”.

Does It Matter What Floss I Buy?

Overall, what really matters is that you choose to floss. The effectiveness between different types of floss is not particularly significant. In the dental aisle of any pharmacy, you can find a number of floss types and flossing aids such as floss holders.

I would recommend trying different types of floss until you find one that works for you. Don’t buy the cheapest stuff available as the very cheap floss tends to be more prone to tearing and breaking. This is especially true if you have very tight contacts between your teeth.

So How Do I Floss Properly, Anyhow?

To answer that question, watch this short video on YouTube. It shows the basics of effective flossing.