Aside from being irritating bad breath can be a sign of other health conditions which won't be covered here. Instead we are to assume that bad breath is not a health risk and instead is the result of an odor coming from your mouth or digestive tract and will cover how to detect bad breath and how to fix it.
Detecting bad breath can be hard due to acclimatised to your own smell, as a result you run the risk of having to be told that you breath stinks, by a friend who is fed up with you breathing on them during conversation or horror of horrors when kissing a partner. Worst of all still is having bad breath but never knowing, remember that guy who didn't return your calls, or the girl that was keen but ran of when she got up close - yep bad breath (well maybe).
A simple test
Lick your hand and leave it to dry for a moment, then smell. That is what your breath smells like, was it pleasant? or did you reach for a gag bag?
The reason why your breath smells is most likely because of something you ate fairly recently which should go away over the next day or so, or more likely, due to the presence of anaerobic bacteria in the mouth which feed on the leftovers after eating.
I can probably guarantee that you did not enjoy the smell, and whilst there will always be some kind of odor no matter what you do (you have to eat) there are several ways you can minimize the smell. We'll start with a few no brainers...
The no brainers
Clean your teeth - everyone does this but how well do you actually clean. Morning and night should be the norm, even after every meal if necessary, remember to floss.
Eat neutral foods - if your breath smells of garlic, stop eating garlic, if it stinks of cheese stop eating cheese. You get this one
The not so obvious
Clean your tongue - nearly all bad breath can be significantly reduced in most cases by a good cleaning of the tongue. The tongue like the teeth can hold onto food which can become embedded in the grooves of the tongue thereby acting as a nice food storage vat that bacteria can feast of yet very few actively take to time to make sure it is clean.
How to clean the tongue;
1- wet the mouth
2- using a tooth brush start at the back of the tongue and scrap forward
3- repeat until fairly clean and free of debris
4- apply toothpaste to tongue
5-rub into tongue and leave for a moment
6-using a tooth brush start at the back of the tongue and scrap forward
note - make sure you clean as far back as you can!!!
viola - in most cases your bad breath should be significantly reduced, if not you need to dig deeper.
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