New Year, new smile, new you!

From all of us here at AP Smilecare, we’d like to start by saying: Happy New Year! After all the celebration and indulgence of Christmas, we’re now into the first week or so of January, which means you’re probably already thinking about your New Year’s Resolution. And if that’s the case, it’s worth sparing a thought for your smile!

It’s not unusual for many people to feel like their smile plays a part in defining them as a person – which is why we work so hard to help our patients feel good about theirs with our range of dental treatments here at AP Smilecare. So, if you’ve got some big plans on the horizon for this year – whether that’s for your smile or for other areas of your life – here are some good top tips to help you achieve them!

Start small

An ambitious goal can all-too-easily get overwhelming if you set your sights too high initially, so even with your big goals, it’s a good idea to split them up into small, easily manageable chunks. So that means if your goal is to get fit for the New Year for example, then you could start by joining a gym and just setting yourself the goal of going once a week. After you’ve achieved that, the next step will feel more manageable, and you can steadily scale it up. Build on your successes, and don’t try to take on too much at once.

By the same token, if you want to protect your teeth by changing your diet for example, don’t change all of it at once, as that’s a surefire way to end up becoming overwhelmed, and ultimately falling back into familiar habits that you want to change. Instead, aim to add or take away one small thing from your diet – maybe try and reduce a Friday takeaway every so often, or sugar in your coffee or tea. That can be a big help in helping you eventually make bigger steps to cutting things out of your diet entirely, which can do wonders for your teeth.

Keep a diary to record your successes

This is something you might not want to do right away, but might be worth doing after you’ve got some momentum with your New Year’s Resolutions, as it can be a great way to propel you on to further successes. What kind of record you want to keep (and how visible you want it to be) is all up to you. It can be something as simple as a calendar if you’d like, especially if you’re trying to establish a daily habit. You can then easily just make a tick or similar mark to check off each day, enabling you to tell at a glance how well you’re doing with making it a more frequent goal.

Or if your resolution is something that’s not necessarily a daily goal, but might be a bit more in-depth or involved, then you might want to record it in a private diary, detailing what you’ve found easy or difficult, and how you’ve managed to overcome those challenges. So if you want to improve your dental health for example, you can detail if there are any particular new meals you’ve tried that have worked for you, or any new tips you’ve recently found out about (such as: don’t rinse your mouth out with water after brushing your teeth, as it removes all the fluoride from your mouth!).

Always keep an eye out for new opportunities!

If you’re working towards achieving a relatively big goal, then it’s always worth staying proactive and keeping an ear out for anything that could help to make it easier in the long run. You’ll probably already know that you need to brush your teeth for at least two minutes twice a day, but lots of people often underestimate exactly how much easier and more efficient it is to keep teeth clean with an electric toothbrush over a manual one. Flossing your teeth is another major one that a lot of people tend to gloss over, especially here in the UK, but it can make a massive difference to your overall dental health.

So whatever your goals, make sure to ask your friends and family for tips, read magazines, keep an eye on the news – they can all be useful sources of inspiration and encouragement!

And of course, if you ever need any help or advice about your dental health specifically, that’s exactly where we can help here at AP Smilecare. We have decades of experience helping our patients achieve the smile of their dreams, offering a wide range of dental treatments to choose from. Why not pop into our Blackburn dental clinic, or book an appointment on 01254 297 000, and see what we can do for you?