Cleaning your tongue regularly prevents bad breath and supports good dental hygiene. You can clean your tongue with baking soda and other home remedies. Here’s how to clean your tongue without a scraper.
Do You Need A Tongue Scraper or Tongue Brush?
If you’ve been reading about how to clean your tongue, you might think you need a special tool like a tongue scraper or tongue brush. But you don’t need to buy special tools to clean your tongue and keep your mouth healthy. You can also clean your tongue with baking soda or just use your toothbrush.
While a tongue scraper primarily loosens the upper layer of the tongue coating, a brush gets to the hard-to-reach nooks and crannies. The results of a 2019 study show that tongue scrapers are slightly more effective than tongue brushes, though they both remove the tongue coating. This is also beneficial because tongue scrapers are made of metal, meaning they’re recyclable. Tongue brushes, on the other hand, are usually made with plastic.
Using a tongue scraper is easy: simply place the scraper as far back as possible on your tongue and then pull it forward towards the tip with gentle pressure. Depending on the width of the scraper, you should use it several times to ensure you clean the entire tongue.
How to Clean Your Tongue Naturally (Without A Scraper)
If you don’t have a tongue scraper, you can keep your tongue clean and healthy with the following home remedies:
- Hard Foods: Chewing hard foods like raw fruits and vegetables or crusty bread will scrape and loosen the coating from your tongue. This also reduces bacteria in the mouth.
- Baking Soda: Baking soda and baking powder have a neutralizing effect and remove food debris from the tongue. Just mix half a teaspoon of baking soda or baking powder in a glass of water and rinse your mouth thoroughly.
- Salt Water: Rinsing your mouth with salty water is also an effective way to clean your tongue. To make a simple saline solution, dissolve a teaspoon of salt in a glass of warm water, rinse your mouth for about 30 seconds and then spit the water out.
- Herbal Tinctures: Sage, myrrh, and thyme are said to have antibacterial properties that help kill germs on the tongue. Think of it as a natural mouthwash. Simply add one or two drops into a glass of warm water and rinse your mouth with it. Alternatively, (cooled) sage tea can also be used to clean your tongue.
Why Cleaning Your Tongue Is Important
Did you know that there are about 700 different species of microorganisms living in your mouth right now? Food residues and dead cells get stuck on the rough surface of your tongue, creating an ideal breeding ground for bacteria. You can see the build-up of bacteria when your tongue looks like it’s coated in white.
To make it worse, poor oral hygiene cannot only be seen but also smelled. Most cases of bad breath originate in your mouth, not your stomach. If you have bad breath, you can combat it by learning how to clean your tongue — and doing it regularly.
Ayurveda medicine (an ancient Indian healing art), teaches that daily tongue cleaning contributes to the detoxification of the body, improves taste buds, and boosts digestion. That being said, only the improved digestion power has been scientifically supported so far. The results of a 2018 study showed that ‘digestive fire’ and general oral health can be aided through tongue cleaning.
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This article has been translated from German by Karen Stankiewicz. You can find the original here: Zunge reinigen: Mit diesen Hausmitteln wird sie sauber
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