5 Bad Habits That Make Morning Breath Worse
Standard morning breath is typically unpleasant. But certain habits can make morning breath even worse. If you have been waking up recently with particularly bad morning breath, then your bad habits could be to blame.
First, you need to identify those habits, and then take steps to stop them.
1. Skipping brushing at night
This habit is the most obvious and the most damaging. To understand why this habit contributes to bad breath, you have to understand exactly what produces the bad odours in your mouth overnight. Rotting food and the bacteria that feed on that food are to blame for morning breath, especially if you don't brush your teeth before bedtime.
Food stuck between your teeth rots throughout the night, giving off a bad odour, and bacteria multiply as they feed on that food, releasing stinky sulphur. This leaves you with a very stinky mouth come morning.
2. Skipping meals
Did you know that eating can keep bad breath at bay? Eating and chewing stimulate saliva production. Saliva kills bacteria, keeping their numbers low, and in turn, this keeps smelly sulphur from leaving you with bad morning breath. Saliva also washes food particles out of your mouth and into your stomach, which means less rotten food in the morning.
3. Snacking before bedtime
If you snack before bedtime, you are providing the colonies of bacteria in your mouth with an overnight feast. While you sleep, the bacteria in your mouth will feast on the remains of the snack in your mouth, multiplying and giving off foul odours as they do so.
4. Smoking before bedtime
Smoking dries your mouth out, diminishing your mouth's ability to produce saliva for a while after a cigarette. If you have a habit of smoking before bedtime then, you will go to sleep with less saliva in your mouth. Saliva is your mouth's natural defence against oral bacteria since it has antibacterial properties.
If your mouth is dry when you go to sleep, you'll wake up with more oral bacteria and thus, a bad case of morning breath. If you do smoke before bedtime, try to follow the cigarette up with a small glass of water to keep your mouth hydrated.
5. Sleeping with your mouth open
Again, a healthy salivary flow is one way of combatting morning breath. But if you sleep with your mouth open due to allergies or just habit, the constant flow of air in and out of your mouth will dry your mouth out, leaving oral bacteria to multiply and flourish within — a stinky situation! Try to practice sleeping with your mouth closed and change your allergy medicine if you have to.
For more tips, reach out to a local dentist.