This 10-Second Habit Could Eliminate Bad Breath for Good

Why Tongue Cleaning Matters 0:00

Most people brush and floss their teeth every day. But did you know you might be leaving behind one of the biggest sources for bad breath and bacteria in your mouth? I'm talking about the tongue. What's growing there? What it causes? and what to do about it may actually surprise you. Stick around till the end because I'm going to give you a 10 second tip and oral habit to do to take care of all of that bacteria and bad breath every single day. How many of you clean your tongue every day? Be honest.

Do you? Do you feel like you need to? Well, let's talk about this. Why is the tongue so important? Well, if you look at the tongue, it has a lot of surface area. I like to joke that it's like a shag carpet. There's a lot of nooks and crannies and things going everywhere. And it collects things. It collects bacteria. It collects food debris. It collects dead cells from the mouth. All of these things build up on the tongue. Why is this a problem? Well, all of that buildup leads to bad breath. It leads to things like gum disease when those bacteria flourish and aren't removed every single day.

Tongue Buildup, Bad Breath, and Whole-Body Effects 1:07

Now, a lot of people tell me I brush my tongue. It's no problem. I brush my tongue. I take care of it. It's not a problem for me. But I'm going to offer a challenge here in just a minute to really decide, are you really cleaning your tongue as effectively as you should? And again, does it matter more than just your mouth? Well, bad breath, gum disease, those things don't just stay put. There's something called the oral systemic connection, which means whatever's going on in your mouth is going to affect all of you head to toe.

And those bacteria, if they're flourishing in the mouth, they're going to get into the bloodstream. It's not just bacteria as well. I believe that a lot of what's living on the tongue is actually yeast. Well, people hear about Candida infection and yeast infection in the gut and other places, and oftentimes it's really confusing to figure out why, if you're doing everything right, you're even doing some anti-Candida treatments, why is the yeast still coming back? Again, a huge source of it is the tongue.

And if it's not getting cleaned off every day, it's going to affect locally here, but it's also going to affect the rest of the body primarily and particularly the gut, the digestive system. So if you are struggling with Candida overgrowth, with yeast infections in places, it may all be coming from your tongue. I know this sounds a little crazy. Now I talk about this with patients all the time. This is one of the things that I am so strongly encouraging people to do.

A Patient Story and Tongue Scraping Benefits 2:44

Why? Because I see an enormous difference. So I remember this one gentleman in particular. His wife sent him in because of bad breath, because she was having a little bit of a struggle when she was kissing him. So he was embarrassed. He didn't want to be there. He didn't even really want to bring it up. But thankfully his wife had written it on his medical history form while he was there. And we very gently discussed this with him and said, just take a peek at your tongue. It was coated in white stuff.

And he said, well, my tongue always looks like this. In fact, sometimes it even gets a little yellow and sometimes even a little black in the back. Well, What is that? That is simply bacteria and yeast overgrowth on the tongue. There's no way that the breath is going to smell good passing over that if that's what's growing. So he said, we have great news for you. All you need to do is start tongue scraping. And he was like, I have no idea what tongue scraping is. So we walked him through the simple procedure to scrape the tongue, as I'm going to show you in just a minute as well.

We walked him through the simple procedure, said, I want you to do it twice a day to begin with. You can back off to once a day once you don't see this growth there anymore. He started doing it. He came back in three months for a follow-up exam for his gum disease that we'd identified. They said, I cannot believe the difference that has made. He said, yeah, I've been, you know, brushing a little bit better, maybe doing a few other things, but I cannot believe it. My gums, they were red. They were bleeding.

My breath was terrible. He's like, I could even smell it. He said, all of that is completely resolved. And surprisingly enough, I feel like I'm digesting better. Like things aren't getting stuck. I'm not feeling bloated. I don't get that heartburn I would sometimes get after a meal. He said, can this really be just from tongue scraping? He couldn't believe it. Neither could his wife. Well, we could because we see this every day all day. So what is tongue scraping?

How to Scrape Your Tongue Properly 4:42

It's simply removing the debris on the tongue every single day. This is the tongue scraper I recommend. You can find this at livingwellwithdrmichelle.com. The reason I recommend it is for a couple of reasons. First of all, copper. Copper is antimicrobial. So if you're using plastic, which I used for years, plastic or even stainless steel, the problem is, is you're removing the debris from the tongue, rinsing it off, but it's not all going to get off. It's just what it is. You're going to have something remaining on the surface.

So then tomorrow you put that back into the mouth. You're basically reinfecting yourself with whatever you removed yesterday. That doesn't happen with copper because copper is antimicrobial. Nothing can grow on here. The other reason I like it is because it helps to really get all the way back as far back as you need to get. But it does it in a gentle way that doesn't scrape too much. It's not going to cause, you know, really irritation on the tongue. So what is the procedure? You're going to stick your tongue out.

You're going to put the tongue scraper as far back as you can go without gagging yourself. And you're just going to simply pull forward. You're going to see that it has gunk on it. What do you do with that? You're going to rinse it off and you're going to do it again. Typically, you're going to do it three, four, maybe five times until when you scrape, nothing comes off anymore. And you're going to find when you're doing this routinely that you don't have as much coming off anymore because you're cleaning it every single day.

Now, when do I do this? My routine is I like to brush. Then I tongue scrape. You can floss in there as well. Brush, floss, tongue scrape. You're going to mouthwash and then you're going to go to bed. So this is the thing that I do every evening before I go to bed. Can you also tongue scrape in the morning? Absolutely. No problem. Do you have to? I think once a day is enough if you don't want to do it twice a day. So that's the routine. Literally 10 seconds to completely clear up bad breath, improve gum disease, improve gut function.

Daily Oral Care Routine and Closing Tips 6:29

So many benefits here. If this is something that you would like to know more about, please check out everything on livingwellwithdrmichelle.com. You're going to find the tongue scraper, the mouthwash there. And if you're local to Utah, please come and visit. We'll tell you all about tongue scraping and more and all the ways that you can stay healthy head to toe starting in your mouth because your mouth and your tongue are really the origin of a lot of health concerns and that's what we want to do is just teach you how to keep them clean, how to keep them well so that you can stay well head to toe.