Since oral health can affect your body, poor dental health can actually impact your athletic performance. Whether you love to exercise at home or are an avid competitor, here’s what you need to know about your dental health when it comes to your physical performance!

Pain Can Affect Your Ability to Train

Having poor oral health—including increased plaque, tooth decay, or gum disease—can cause pain and discomfort in your mouth. Pain can affect your ability to fully participate in trainings and competitions, and can even affect eating [1]. All of these have the ability to impact your athletic ability.

Pain can make it difficult not only to concentrate, but to give a sport or competition your absolute best effort. Keeping your smile healthy can help you avoid discomfort and give your full attention and effort to your athletic performance!

Poor Dental Health Impacts Your Overall Wellbeing

Research indicates that poor oral health can affect your entire wellbeing [2]. Tooth decay and gum disease can both cause and maintain inflammation in the body, which can not only make it more difficult to reach your maximum physical performance, but also hinder your recovery time from trainings.

Poor dental health can also impact your quality of life, which can, in turn, affect your physical ability. A healthy smile is an integral part of a healthy body—so maintaining your oral health can help maintain bodily health as well!

Strong Teeth Keep You in the Game

Did you know that athletes are at an increased risk for oral disease and trauma? This is because exercise can cause dehydration, which can lead to dry mouth. Dry mouth carries an increased risk for cavities and gum disease. In addition, physical stress can lead to teeth grinding, and sports snacks and drinks tend to contain a lot of added sugar.

Athletes that have existing oral health problems such as tooth decay have a higher chance of sustaining an injury to their smile during their sport or competition. Teeth that are weakened by tooth decay or gum disease are more susceptible to cracks, chips, and even to be knocked out by an impact.

Are You an Athlete?

Whether you play sports or just enjoy the occasional jog, keeping up with your oral health is essential to your performance. If you play a contact sport, it’s always a good idea to invest in a custom mouthguard from your dentist to prevent an injury that could permanently alter your smile. And by keeping up with your regular oral care habits at home and visiting your dentist, you can ensure a strong smile to support your highest physical performance!

Sources:
1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29938820
2. https://www.fdiworlddental.org/news/20190529/poor-oral-hygiene-severely-impacts-training-and-athletic-performance

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Healthy teeth are more than just a pretty smile for these Olympians. A healthy smile has been
linked to a lower risk for systemic diseases such as heart disease. In addition, strong teeth help
these athletes to properly chew their food, therefore supporting proper digestion.

With all the rigors of being an athlete, how do these professionals protect their smile when
competing in the winter games?

Custom Mouthguards Prevent Injury

In sports such as skiing, snowboarding, and hockey, custom mouthguards are an integral part of
preventing injury. Combine this with the fact that a dental emergency can majorly hinder—if
not entirely halt—their performance and mouth safety has become more of a priority than ever
for these competitors.

Custom mouthguards are essential and offer full protection, as compared to store-bought ones
that can’t properly mold to your unique smile. In fact, there’s also evidence that mouthguards
may help decrease the frequency and severity of brain concussions. This is because in addition
to protecting the teeth, custom mouthguards can help absorb the harmful impact in sports that
can cause concussions!

Protecting and Preventing Sensitive Teeth

In the Winter Olympics, cold air does more than make the body cold. If these athletes have
sensitive teeth, breathing cold air can actually make teeth that have compromised enamel hurt!
It’s imperative that these professional competitors take care of their smiles to avoid this.

For example, consider figure skating, where athletes are exposed to temperatures close to
freezing while outdoor competitors are exposed to temperatures in the negatives, sometimes
as much as 25 degrees below! These temperatures are enough to make sensitive teeth painful,
therefore compromising an athlete’s ability to perform their best.

It’s essential to prevent sensitive teeth when possible by adopting best practices when it comes
to teeth whitening (always get it professionally done), hygiene (gentle brushing habits), and
checkups (every six months). An athlete’s mouth is more important than you think!

Athletes Need to Have Their Best Smile

For all the reasons above, athletes need to have their best smile. Dental checkups are
imperative to getting cavities treated early as well as getting any injured teeth repaired. A
professional dentist can also fit athletes with a proper mouthguard, ensuring their smile is
protected at all times while competing.

X-rays can also help determine any problems that your dentist can’t easily see, such as
impacted wisdom teeth. Did you know that athletes who have impacted wisdom teeth are four
times more likely to suffer from a broken jaw while competing? It’s more important than ever
for these professionals to have their best, healthiest smile.

Have you been enjoying the Winter Olympics? Consider that these Olympians need to keep
their mouths as healthy as possible. It wouldn’t hurt to take a cue from these professionals and
take care of your smile, so that you have the best, most beautiful and healthy smile for your
future, whether you’re an Olympian or not!

The post How Winter Olympians Protect Their Smile appeared first on Your Dental Health Resource.

Teeth Grinding

Athletes run a higher risk of damage to their teeth and gums through bruxism, or teeth grinding. Teeth grinding can happen during intense exercises, as a result of stress, or even an injury. It’s important to wear custom mouth guards if appropriate for the sport you’re playing. If not, try to be aware of whether or not you grind your teeth during exercises. Bruxism is a serious threat to your oral health and can lead to tooth enamel damage, inflamed gums, and even tooth loss. Consider dental guards or exercises and workouts that are low impact. You shouldn’t be grinding your teeth during an exercise, even if it’s a difficult one!

Dry Mouth

One of the biggest influential factors of poor dental health among athletes was found to be their saliva (link to study: http://www.ada.org/en/publications/ada-news/2014-archive/november/endurance-athletes-may-be-more-prone-to-tooth-erosion-and-caries-researchers-say) —not only did the pH of athlete’s saliva change as they worked out, but saliva also decreased due to mouth breathing. Breathing through your mouth can quickly dry out your mouth, leaving a perfect space for bad bacteria to thrive. Lack of saliva in addition to bad bacteria can erode your enamel over time and lead to cavities, gingivitis, and tooth loss.

Instead of breathing through your mouth, try better breathing methods such as through your nose. It may take time to build up to working out with your mouth shut the whole time, which could mean decreasing the intensity of your workouts while your body adjusts. It’s worth it to protect your teeth!

Diet—Sports Drinks and “Health” Bars

While some studies haven’t found a direct link between athlete’s dental health and their diet, diet still plays an important role in oral health. Athletes may be predisposed to having dental problems as a result of their dry mouth, and a dry mouth isn’t the best environment to be introducing sports drinks to. The conventional sports drink is packed with processed salts and sugar, which are doing your body more harm than good!

Many “energy” bars tend to be packed with sugar as well. Learn to read the label and remember that whole foods are better than buying pre-packaged ones. Toss the sports drinks and opt for more natural alternatives, such as coconut water. If you don’t like the taste of coconut water, you can add whole salts like pink Himalayan sea salt to your water (just a pinch) to help get those trace minerals you need in addition to rehydrating.

Exercise is so important for your body! Although athletes are more at risk for poor dental health, you can adopt healthy practices to reap the benefits of exercise and still have a great smile. Don’t grind your teeth, breathe through your nose, and rehydrate with coconut water during breaks. Healthy teeth, healthy body!

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