It may be hard for some to understand that their oral and mental health are intimately connected. However, this is true time and time again. Many people are unable to live the life they want to live because they don’t have their oral health lined up the way they would have hoped for it to be. The scary thing about this is that plenty of people aren’t doing everything they can or should do to take care of their oral health because they don’t realize just how connected it is to the rest of their health. Today, we will look at the connection between oral and mental health.
The Social Media Impact
One of the pieces of evidence that oral health and mental health are connected is that 48% of Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 have untagged themselves in a picture on Facebook simply because they didn’t look the like of their smile. A huge number of people have decided that they don’t want the world to see their smiles because they are concerned about how their teeth appear to other people. They don’t want to be known to have a smile in the way that it appears in a specific picture on social media.
Some might look at this and think that this is simply a matter of vanity, but that isn’t the truth either. The smile one possesses says a lot about oneself as a person, and it’s important to look at what you can do to help make your smile look the best it can be. People make judgment calls about others based on their smiles, which is a big reason why so many care about getting their smiles to look exactly right.
Braces Are a Common Procedure
The fact is that getting braces to correct one’s smile is a very common procedure in the United States. According to Humana, over 4 million people in the United States have braces. This procedure can help them straighten their smile and help them feel more confident in their appearance. People who have been through this know that there is something to be said about getting a straighter and better-looking smile. If you want to make all of that happen, then you need to look at what steps you need to take to get braces for yourself.
Wearing braces to straighten your smile takes some time and requires a fair amount of maintenance to make them work as designed. However, you’ll certainly see an improvement in your mental health if you have a straighter and better-looking smile. This is exactly what you need to do if you are serious about having the perfect smile to help you feel confident in yourself.
The Frequency of Smiles Is Linked to Mental Health
Smiling more often can improve your mental health. However, roughly 5% of people say that they rarely smile at all. They might be ashamed of the way that their smile looks, and this can cause them to avoid smiling at all. That can have a negative impact on one’s mental health. Interestingly, roughly 30% of people say that they smile 20 or more times daily. It can be reasonably assumed that those who smile more often also have a better mental health experience.
Feeling confident in your smile might lead you to smile more often, and that might contribute to a better mental health picture for yourself. Therefore, it’s important to talk to your oral health provider about actions you can take to improve your teeth. This will play a major role in helping you to feel better about your smile, which might lead you to smile more frequently as a whole. Given all of this, you should make sure you think about how your oral health is linked to your mental health and take care of both.
