1-800-DENTIST Blog

Happy National Flossing Day

Today is National Flossing Day, the favorite holiday of dental hygienists and periodontists everywhere. Surprised? Me too. I never knew that flossing had its own special day until I joined 1-800-DENTIST®.

It turns out that this holiday has been on the calendar since 2000. That’s when the National Flossing Council (NFC) first designated the Friday after Thanksgiving as the official day to honor the remarkable power of flossing to fight tooth decay and gum disease.
National Flossing Day is a big deal at 18D … so big that it’s a paid day off. Pretty cool, don’t you think?

According to the NFC, the goal of National Flossing Day is to encourage people of all ages to “consider the role flossing has played in his or her life during the previous year, and to celebrate flossing in order to help spread ‘Peace of Mouth’ in their own lives and the lives of others around them.” That’s one noble mission.

Flossing seems easy enough, but you'll want to make sure you're doing it right to minimize your risk of cavities and gingivitis. The best way to floss is to:

1. Break off just over an arm's length of floss.
2. Hold the floss tightly between your thumbs and index fingers.
3. Slide the floss gently up and down between your teeth.
4. Curve the floss around the base of each tooth down to below the gumline.
5. Remove the dental floss using a gentle back-and-forth motion to bring the floss up and away from your teeth.
6. Use a clean section of floss for each tooth.

Everyone at 1-800-DENTIST wants to wish you and yours a happy and safe National Flossing Day.