It is nowadays common to see people with braces on their teeth. Just a decade or so ago, it was a relatively rare to come across a person with dental braces – but that has changed. Gather a sample of any one hundred or so people in any major (developed) city today, and chances are that you are likely to find at least one wearing dental braces. This has led to questions, among those of us who are not in the know, as to what benefits wearing the braces comes with. In other words, the question is whether the braces are worn with a particular end in mind, or if they are just worn for their own sake (as in, if they are something of a ‘fashion fad’).
As it turns out, braces are in fact dental equipment that dentists give/prescribe to certain groups of people, with specific ends in mind. Wearing the brace that a dentist gives you is a means to an end, and not an end to itself.
The main reason for wearing dental braces is to bring teeth into proper alignment. This results in the so-called ‘perfect’ smile: where the teeth are in neat attractive rows. The perfect smile you see on some models and other famous people are not ‘gifts’ they were born with. They are rewards for efforts they have made, probably with the help of their dentist – through things like teeth whitening and wearing of braces.
Contrary to what many of us imagine, braces are not only for those of us with severely ‘crooked’ teeth. Even those of us with reasonable dental alignment are likely to see the alignment starting to fall out of order with time (so that it stops being so ‘perfect’). It is in rectifying this that the dental braces come in handy.
By giving you better appearance in the mouth, dental braces offer you many other advantages as well. If you have the perfect smile that the use of braces can give you, and you ‘flaunt’ it at just the right times and in the right way, you could see people being more open to persuasion by you. You also get them to start perceiving you as ‘friendly’ in the first place, because – let’s face it – we are subconsciously inclined to like people who look good. Human success has always depended on gaining the cooperation of others, and you are likely to find this very hard if your dental arrangement ‘misrepresents’ you.
If by now you find the use of dental braces something you may consider, but are wary of what others will say upon sighting you wearing the dental braces, you may be glad to learn that there are also invisible braces you can wear. This way, you get to access the benefits that braces come with – proper teeth alignment, perfect smile and so on – without having to worry about being seen wearing the braces.
Although you can buy and start using braces on your own, it is always a good idea to seek the input of your dentist. Your dentist will advice you on, among others, the best types of braces to buy and right way to use them to get the best out of them.
