When we travel, fresh breath is something that we quite often overlook or take for granted as we’re preoccupied with things like itineraries and mobile chargers. However, remaining alert about terrible breath is essential as it happens to be a guaranteed way to ruin any tour or trip instantly.
When you’re travelling by plane, unexpected pressure changes can slow down body functions, and this includes the creation of saliva. The lesser the generation of saliva, the more the bacteria. This will cause terrible breath at a greater height.
Halitosis, or bad breath, also develops due to the dietary patterns of an individual at the time of travelling. Many people up their soft drink and junk food intake while on the road. This leaves food particles in the mouth, from which sulphur particles rise, and can trigger an awful breath. While a few people settle on poor decisions for meals, others basically don’t eat. This unbalanced eating routine together with hunger can also cause halitosis.
In addition to this, a lot of people tend to overlook oral hygiene while travelling. Needless to say, this prompts terrible breath as they’re getting from one place to another. Here are some solutions to ensure this doesn’t happen to you while you’re on vacation.
Travel-sized toothbrush with toothpaste
Some airlines give out pocket-sized toothbrushes and even little toothpaste packages on long-haul flights. In any case, don’t count always receiving these. There are also other things to consider.
On a flight, you won’t know whether the size of the toothbrush you get is big or little, the number of bristles on the toothbrush, how much toothpaste you will get, if the toothbrush has fluoride, and so on. Pick a toothbrush that has delicate and soft bristles so it won’t be difficult to clean the teeth and expel the microscopic bacteria in a safe way. Use toothpaste with sodium fluoride for the removal of microscopic bacteria. If halitosis is normal for you, go for toothpaste that contains chlorine dioxide to kill the microorganisms and sulphur fusions that add to bad breath.
Remember to floss
Without floss, no day-to-day oral care is complete. If you need to battle awful breath while travelling, be sure you floss before or after the brushing. Food particles, plaque, and microorganisms continue prowling in the cleft between the teeth and the gums. Rubbing with a toothbrush can remove a bit of these, but flossing is an absolute necessity for complete removal.
Pack some sugar-free gum
You’ve seen the ads before – sugar-free gum battles bad breath with the aid of an ingredient called Xylitol. This brings down the number of microscopic organisms in your mouth and improves saliva formation to limit bad breath. Chewing gum has another advantage for travelling through air – it helps to relieve any pain you might experience from the change in cabin pressure throughout a flight.
Clean your tongue
Take out your tongue and look in the mirror. If it is pink, you have nothing to worry about. However, if there’s a white coat over it, you know you’ve got to get rid of it. A toothbrush isn’t enough, so you’ll need a tongue cleaner to do this. Even after having simple like a cup of coffee, cleaning your tongue is absolutely necessary.
Alcohol-free mouthwash
Bad breath frequently runs hand-in-hand with a dry mouth. This is because dead cells and microbes in the mouth can get out of hand due to the lack of saliva. Regardless of whether you have something chronic like an autoimmune disease or have just had coffee, a non-alcoholic mouthwash kills microscopic bacteria without drying out your mouth. It also helps get your saliva flowing again, and leaves breath fresh.