Why Should I BRUSH my Tongue?

Scraping tongues has always been a family pastime for me! It's the one thing that my mom ALWAYS had each of us do as kids and beyond! I always thought it was for my breath, because to check if we had brushed our teeth, my mom would always do the 'breath test'. We would line up and breath into my mom's nose and she would determine if we had brushed our teeth or not. Actually, remember those Listerine sheets that you put on your tongue for fresh breath? Well, my uncle gave us a few and my brothers, being the brilliant thinkers they are, figured that instead of brushing, they could place one of those sheets on their tongues and pass the 'breath test'. Well, my mom didn't fall for that one and she immediately sent them back to the bathroom to brush!

What's the deal about tongue hygiene?

One of my professors in dental hygiene school taught me an AMAZING way of thinking about brushing your tongue. If you have a carpet in your home, it catches all the dirt etc, so after a while or once every so often (If you're me) you vacuum it. Well, tongues are basically the carpets of our mouth. They have little bumps called papilla that cover the entire tongue and catch food, debris, and other stuff in it. The way to vacuum all this stuff off your tongue is to either brush it, or use a tongue scraper. In the picture above, I am using my ultimate favorite one called the Orabrush! Of course it helped that it is pink, but don't worry it comes in all different colors! I love this brush because it has little bristles that really brush your tongue!