What’s the best way to keep your teeth clean? Brushing with a stick probably isn’t high on your list. However, the benefits of brushing your teeth with miswak sticks are too impressive to ignore.
Coming from the Arak tree, a tree that’s native to the Middle East, miswak sticks have been used as a natural oral hygiene strategy for over 7,000 years. Thanks to the twig’s natural antibiotic properties, miswak sticks can kill bacteria in your mouth and lower your risk of developing gum disease or gingivitis.
It might sound daunting to trade out your plastic toothbrush and toothpaste tube for a twig, but the benefits are enough to make you consider it.
12 Benefits Of Brushing Your Teeth With A Miswak Stick
Make a habit of regularly cleaning your teeth with a miswak stick, and you’ll soon experience many of the following advantages.
1. Fights Tooth Decay and Cavities
Most of us overeat sugar today, and this habit is leading to a higher prevalence of cavities and tooth decay. Cutting out sweet treats is one way to keep your teeth in top shape, but brushing with a miswak stick will also make a difference.
Brushing with miswak sticks is a proven way to increase your saliva production and help your mouth to fight tooth decay without any outside help. In the same way, miswak sticks will work to strengthen your enamel through their natural levels of sodium chloride, sodium bicarbonate, and calcium oxide.
2. Potent Antibacterial Properties
Your mouth contains more than 700 strains of bacteria, and not all of them are beneficial for its health. While most bacterial strains aid mastication by breaking down each bite of food, some are harmful and actively erode the enamel on your teeth.
Brushing with miswak sticks can help keep these bacterial levels under control through their antibacterial properties. Research from the World Health Organization has revealed that people who use miswak regularly have fewer oral hygiene concerns than those who brushed their teeth with standard products.
3. Protects Against Plaque Buildup
Plaque is a colorless film of bacteria that forms on your gums and teeth over time. While regular brushing will remove plaque buildup, letting the condition get out of control can lead to tartar- a yellow discoloration that can lead to gum disease or tooth loss over time.
Brushing regularly with a miswak stick can prevent this plaque from forming tartar because its natural antibiotic properties will prevent bacteria from staying on your teeth and gums.
4. Removes Bad Breath
Few things are more embarrassing than public bad breath, and brushing with a miswak stick can reduce your risk of dealing with it. Halitosis, commonly known as bad breath, has dozens of causes that range from a strong-scented diet to untreated cavities or gum disease. However, the condition is usually a sign that something is significantly wrong with your mouth.
Though the causes of the bad breath can vary, miswak’s antibiotic properties make it a perfect treatment to get the symptoms back under control. Using the sticks regularly will lead to more saliva production, acting as a time-tested remedy for bad breath.
5. Strengthens Gum Tissue to Prevent Gingivitis
Healthy gums are the foundation of strong teeth, so any potential problem within this soft tissue should be addressed immediately. Plaque buildup is common on the gums as well as on your teeth, and its presence also increases your chances of developing gum disease or gingivitis. If gingivitis becomes severe, it can irreversibly affect the structure of your jawbone in a condition called periodontitis.
If your teeth ache every time you eat something hot or cold or if painful swelling has become the norm, your gums might be compromised. Brushing with miswak sticks prevents the plaque formation that leads to gum conditions which reduce your chance of developing gingivitis and periodontitis.
6. Natural Anticarcinogenic
The benefits of miswak sticks go far beyond the health of your mouth. In fact, research shows that they contain antioxidant enzymes like peroxidase, catalase, and polyphenol oxidase that have anticarcinogenic properties, consequently reducing your risk of developing cancer. While the sticks aren’t likely to make much difference for cancer that’s already established in your body, they can work as a preventative measure to prevent it from occurring in the first place.
7. Reduces Gum Pain
Miswak sticks contain analgesic properties that are renowned for alleviating irritation and inflammation. This means that regularly brushing has the potential to reduce your gum pain – even after flossing.
8. Pleasant Aftertaste
Even those committed to the taste of mint toothpaste will find a lot to like in the fresh fragrance of miswak sticks. Freshly sourced sticks are filled with naturally occurring volatile compounds that will produce the feeling of a clean mouth and pleasant breath that is comparable to what a traditional mouthwash promises to provide you.
9. Affordable
You might not think that your oral hygiene routine is much of an expense, but the truth is that those electric toothbrushes can really add up. In contrast, miswak sticks are substantially cheaper than most tooth cleaning equipment, and they don’t require outside equipment like toothpaste or mouthwash. Using a miswak stick means that you’ll save money every month without compromising the quality of your oral health routine.
10. Better for the Environment
What happens to your toothbrushes and toothpaste tubes once you dispose of them? Few products are recyclable or biodegradable so they will sit in landfills for decades, if not centuries. In contrast, miswak sticks are nothing more than wood, meaning that they are 100% natural and will break down within weeks in your backyard compost pile.
11. More Beneficial than Standard Toothbrushes
The evidence shows that miswak sticks are more effective than regular toothbrushes in many cases and that they led to a significant improvement in dental plaque buildup and reduced the risk of gingivitis for those who used them – benefits that you won’t always get from regular brushing.
For instance, this research has shown that habitual miswak users experience less gingivitis-induced bleeding and jaw problems than those who used toothbrushes and that using miswak sticks five times a day produced significant health benefits compared to tooth brushing.
12. Optimized Design for Brushing
At first glance, the bristles of a miswak stick look like a standard toothbrush. However, their natural design makes them more effective as a tooth treatment. This is because the bristles on a miswak stick are at the tip of the twig, providing better leverage for reaching tricky spots between teeth like the facial surfaces and interdental spaces that rarely get attention from a regular toothbrush.
Where To Buy Miswak Sticks
First thing you’ll want to do is buy a high quality miswak stick. This set of two miswak sticks is very highly reviewed on Amazon, it’s free from chemicals and pesticides and includes a 120 day money back guarantee if you aren’t satisfied. Each stick will last you three weeks and includes a case so you can take your miswak stick with you when you travel.
Get more details and see the price on Amazon here.
How To Use A Miswak Stick
Not sure how to use a twig to clean your teeth? Brushing with a miswak stick is easier than you think. You can use them as a standalone brushing strategy or combine it with your standard routine.
For best success, follow these steps:
- Trim or chew off the end of a miswak twig so that it becomes soft and forms bristles at the tip.
- Once you have enough bristles, brush your teeth as you would with your normal toothbrush (no toothpaste necessary).
- As the bristles wear down from use, continue to trim or chew the stick to form new ones.
- Rinse your miswak carefully after brushing, and store in a cool, dry place between uses.
If you’re interested in trying a centuries-old tooth cleaning strategy that still withstands scientific scrutiny today, be sure to look into brushing your teeth with a miswak stick. Your oral hygiene, your bank balance and the environment will benefit from it.