How To Keep Your Tongue Healthy With This Guide

While many people focus on teeth health, most people overlook one of the most important parts of their oral health ‒ The Tongue. They are not probably aware of the importance of the tongue. This small piece of muscle performs multiple functions as it helps you to speak, chew, gulp, and besides all of these, it has over 10,000 taste buds. So it is equally important to maintain tongue health. Now, don’t overthink how to keep your tongue healthy, just keep reading the article, which is specially created to help you with the tips.

Your tongue might be home to various healthy or unhealthy bacterias. Healthy bacteria may get affected if your tongue is unhealthy & unclean and unhealthy bacteria may affect your overall oral health. So we have curated a list of healthy tips to take extra care of your tongue. You should practice these tips daily to ensure your tongue is clean and healthy. We will also share some information on the problems that can occur due to an unhealthy and unclean tongue.

Risk Factors Of Unhealthy Tongue

• Infection
• Tongue Cancer
• Cold Sores
• Pain
• Discoloration
• Tasteless

How A Healthy Tongue Looks Like

Well, a healthy tongue color is typically pink but it can still vary slightly light and dark in color person to person or according to the situation. Also, if you notice, the tongue has small nodules on the top, and the bottom called Papillae.

When Your Tongue Is Unhealthy

As we have mentioned earlier the pink color of the tongue is a sign of its healthiness. One of the most noticeable symptoms of an unhealthy tongue is its change in color. The unhealthy tongue may change its color from pink to white, red, yellow, black, and hairy. Other significant signs of unhealthy tongue include pain while eating, drinking, and swallowing along with lumps and bumps.

Things You Should Do To Keep Your Tongue Healthy

1. Brush Your Tongue

Like your teeth, your tongue also needs to be brushed daily. The tongue collects some bacteria when you eat something and do not rinse your mouth after that. If you don’t brush your tongue, it will cause a white tongue. You can use your brush or tongue scraper to keep your tongue clean. This will allow you to expel the odor-causing bacteria from your mouth.

2. Stop Smoking

Needless to say, smoking is harmful to your health – including the tongue. Smokers have more chances to cause oral cancer including tongue cancer. Studies have shown that tobacco is more likely to destroy your taste buds permanently and make them flatter. So if you are concerned about how to take care of your tongue, quit smoking could be highly beneficial for you.

3. Rinse Well

Each time when you eat or drink any beverage, rinse your mouth. By doing so, you are more likely to remove small particles of eatables and prevent your mouth from collecting germs and bacteria that can cause discoloration, flavorless tongue infection, and can lead to many other tongue diseases. To practice this, you can use a warm saline solution or any market product. Just keep your tongue relatively clear of harmful bacteria.

4. Drink Green Tea

If you’re wondering how to improve tongue health, drinking green tea is a great way to do so. Green tea can reduce the bacteria from your month such as odor-causing bacteria helps to keep your tongue clean and mouth fresh.

5. Drink Plenty Of Water

Staying hydrated is a significant way to keep your overall health and functionality good. Drinking plenty of water helps to clean your mouth and take away the debris from your teeth and tongue. Also, it will help to fight against harmful bacterias and maintain the tongue in good color, shape, and taste. So try to drink liters of water every day. It would be a great answer to your query “How to clean tongue naturally”.

6. Antibacterial Foods

Foods with antibacterial properties would be good if you wish to keep your tongue healthy. Foods like garlic, chopped onion, coconut, ginger are helpful in fighting oral bacteria. Also, your tongue enjoys a diet which is rich in Vitamin and Minerals. So try to maintain your diet with healthy food for your tongue health. This would be one of the easiest ways to keep your tongue healthy naturally.

Although this is very less to share with you in the name of tongue health. We’ll cover more in our other article. As of now, we will wind up this with some remedies to maintain the health of your tongue.

You should do the following things to prevent your tongue from a mouth injury

• Avoid extra spicy and hot food.
• Rinse your mouth frequently. 
• You can rinse your mouth once in a day with warm saline water or warm water mix with baking soda. 
• Check with the doctor once in 6 months for a regular checkup
• Drink only cold beverages and eat bland and soft food items if they have cold sores.

Follow these tips and enjoy your favorite flavor in your forthcoming time.