Did you know that 3 in 5 people hate how their smile looks? That’s not a good statistic!
There are so many great benefits of having a healthy smile, from physical benefits to psychological benefits. If you have a bad smile and don’t feel confident in it, this can drastically decrease your well-being and overall health. But how can having a healthy smile actually change how you feel about yourself? How does it have physical as well as psychological benefits? Keep reading this article to learn more about how a smile can change everything!
Physical Benefits of Having a Healthy Smile
Having a healthy smile means more than just flashing your pearly whites at everyone around you. There are actually physical benefits that you can gain for your overall health when you have healthy teeth.
Relieve Stress
You may not immediately think that having healthy teeth can relieve stress, but it can! When you have healthy teeth, you are more likely to smile. As you smile more, you are going to release more feel-good chemicals like dopamine.
Improved Heart Health
Did you know that oral health is linked to heart health and poor oral health is linked to heart disease? Knowing this may automatically make you want to take better care of your teeth right away! Part of the reason is that when you don’t feel good about your teeth, you will have more stress. More stress will lead to more heart issues and could potentially raise your blood pressure as well. However, gum disease can also happen from poor dental hygiene. Gum disease can affect much more than just your dental health. It can also affect your heart health. In fact, patients that have gum disease are two to three times more likely to have a heart attack, get heart disease, or even have a stroke. This is why having dental care is so important for not only your dental health but your overall well-being!
Boost Immunity
In addition to helping your heart and relieving stress, it will also boost your immunity to have a healthy smile. This is because the more we smile, the more positive we think. The more positive you think, the more you are going to benefit your immune system and improve your overall health.
Psychological Benefits of a Healthy Smile
In addition to the physical benefits of having great teeth and gums, there are many psychological benefits of having a healthy smile! So what are they?
Read on to learn more.
Improves Your Confidence
When you have straight teeth that are healthy and white, you can be proud of your oral hygiene. This means that you are more than likely going to be more confident in your smile and feel good about yourself. Because of this, you are going to be more confident when socializing and talking to other people. This is partly because you won’t have any of the subconscious bad feelings associated with having crooked teeth, yellow teeth, or teeth with overall bad oral hygiene.
It can be embarrassing if you have tooth decay, and this can cause you to not socialize with others. When you have a healthy smile and feel good about your oral health, you are going to be more confident around others. In addition to feeling more confident, you’ll be overall happier because you are going to socialize more with others, which is a key factor in human happiness.
Look Younger
In addition to improving your confidence, you are going to look much younger if you are more confident in your teeth. Not only will you look younger because you are more confident, but the more you smile, the more youthful you may appear. This is because smiling exercises the facial muscles. When this happens, it improves the skin’s elasticity and decreases the appearance of wrinkles. When you have healthy teeth, you are going to reap the benefits of a healthy smile because you will be smiling more often!
Makes You More Attractive
Did you know that people actually find straight, evenly-spaced teeth attractive? Some people may even think that bad teeth are a deal breaker for them! This means that if you have a healthy smile, you are going to be more attractive based on first-impressions! Not only are you more attractive physically, but the confidence that you will have because of how you feel happier about your oral hygiene will also make you look more attractive. Don’t ever hesitate to smile bigger with those big pearly whites!
It’s Time for a Healthy Smile
Do you look in the mirror and immediately think that you hate your smile? If you do, then it may be time to change it! The last thing you want to do is walk around with an unhealthy smile. Not only is this going to affect your physical health, such as putting you at risk for gum disease and other problems that you could encounter from an unhealthy smile, but it will also have many psychological effects.
Luckily, by getting a healthy smile, you can turn that all around and have positive psychological effects. Are you ready to schedule an appointment, whether for normal dentistry or cosmetic dentistry? Then we are here to help you accomplish that. If you are in the Virginia Beach area, you can contact us to get that healthy smile you’ve always wanted! Reach out with any questions you may have as well.