A good brushing on a daily basis is an absolute must for keeping your teeth clean and healthy. While a good old fashioned toothbrush has proven indispensable for that job, many people have gravitated towards electric toothbrushes for convenience and performance. But do electric toothbrushes really have the upper hand when it comes to maintaining a beautiful smile?
Electric Toothbrushes Have Their Benefits
There are plenty of advantages to using electric toothbrushes for maintaining your dental health:
- One of the biggest advantages that electric toothbrushes offer is the amount of work they do within the 2 to 3 minutes it takes to brush your teeth. The rotation, vibration and/or oscillating action of the heads allow the bristles to break up plaque in a way that's difficult for manual brushing to achieve.
- Since the brush heads rotate and oscillate on their own, there's no need for the traditional back-and-forth motion associated with traditional toothbrushes. This comes in handy for those with limited dexterity or hand injuries that get in the way of ordinary brushing.
- Electric toothbrush heads also tend to be smaller than their traditional counterparts. While this reduces the amount of surface area that can be cleaned at one time, the small design lets you clean hard-to-reach areas and awkward areas of your teeth.
The novelty of using an electric toothbrush is also a surprising draw for youngsters. If you want your kids to develop good brushing habits, letting them use a fun-themed electric toothbrush offers a great way to encourage those habits.
But Manual Brushing Offers Some Surprising Benefits of Its Own
Electric toothbrushes are an amazing tooth for keeping a bright and healthy smile, but the humble manual toothbrush offers a few surprising benefits over their automatic counterparts:
- Manual brushing puts less pressure on your teeth and gums. Too much force on your teeth and gums while brushing can cause accelerated enamel wear, creating tooth sensitivity while opening the door for tooth decay. The thinner, less bulky design of the average manual toothbrush helps you moderate the amount of pressure you put on your teeth as you brush.
- Manual toothbrushes also encourage you to learn the various brushing techniques that offer the best results for clean teeth. You can use this to enforce good brushing habits in young children.
Of course, the average ordinary toothbrush is also much less expensive than most electric toothbrushes, keeping clean and healthy teeth well within reach of any budget. Replacements are cheap and there's no fear of not finding the right brush heads or batteries when it comes time to replace them.
Technique Matters
Regardless of which type of toothbrush you use, it's important that you know how to use it properly. Improper brushing can lead to a host of long-term tooth problems due to inadequate cleaning, so it pays to get these crucial techniques down-pat for both manual and electric toothbrushes.
Brushing techniques with an electric toothbrush are a bit different, depending on if the head rotates, oscillates or vibrates. Most electric toothbrush heads are sized to clean individual teeth, so you'll need to perform a gentle rocking motion around each tooth. Electric toothbrushes with more traditional head shapes require a back-and-forth rocking motion, but not as exaggerated as what's needed for a traditional toothbrush.
Final Verdict
When it comes to delivering a quick and thorough cleaning, electric toothbrushes edge out their traditional counterparts. Electric toothbrushes are capable of removing more plaque than ordinary manual toothbrushes in a shorter span of time. However, manual toothbrushes from places like Legacy Dental Arts remain a formidable tool when it comes to keeping your teeth in great shape, especially when using recommended brushing techniques.