Coconut Oil Pulling Benefits and How to Do Oil Pulling | Dr. Josh Axe

Hey guys, Dr. Axe here. Today I'm going to show you how to do oil pulling. This is something that's not just a hot, trendy thing right now. This has been done and had major benefits for thousands of years. It's used today in India and Asia all the time for your oral health. You may be wondering, well, what exactly is oil pulling? Oil pulling is taking oil, typically sesame oil, olive oil, or coconut oil, and swishing it back and forth between your teeth. The health benefits are it can actually help heal and cure tooth decay. It's been shown to help heal bleeding gums. It's been shown to naturally whiten your teeth, strengthen your jaw muscles, and overall cleanse your mouth and even support weight loss, some people claim. The truth is this. I was talking to a really well-known dentist recently. He was telling me that, and this is true from all the medical research, that the health of your mouth, the bacteria in your mouth, correlates with the health of the rest of your body. So by healing your mouth and improving your oral health, you can actually improve the health of your entire body. In fact, periodontal disease or gingivitis or bad bacteria built up within your mouth is an indicator that you are at higher risk of heart disease. And so again, very, very important that you're cleansing not just your body, but your oral cavity and your mouth on a regular basis. This is also a great thing to do to naturally freshen up your breath and give you a glowing smile. So here's how you're going to do oil pulling. You're basically going to take two teaspoons of, I like coconut oil, now I like coconut oil over other oils, because it has antifungal and antimicrobial properties, so it will kill off any of that bad bacteria that's in your mouth and also support the growth of good bacteria. So you're going to do two teaspoons in your mouth. You're going to swish it in between your teeth, and don't overdo it, you'll make your mouth sore. Lightly swish it in between your teeth for about 10 to 20 minutes. Now I'm not going to do that here in this video. I'm going to do it for about 10 to 20 seconds, but typically you want to do it 10 to 20 minutes. And here, that may seem like a long time, but if you do it while you're in the shower, that's a great time to do it. So that'll be five minutes alone, and even if you can do just that five minutes, it is still greatly beneficial. So do it while you're in the shower. Do it while you're reading at night. You can do it while you're just kind of getting ready in the morning. But doing oil pulling, as I said, doesn't have to be complicated. So about 10 to 20 minutes afterwards, you're going to spit out the oil in a cup or in the trash can. And then after that, you're going to rinse your mouth out with water, and then finally you're going to brush your teeth as normal. And so I'm going to kind of demonstrate here how this would work. And again, you're going to first take here, I'm going to get a big loaded teaspoon here of coconut oil, and I'm going to put it in my mouth, kind of chew on it for a minute, and then swish it. So I'm going to do this for about 20 seconds, so I guess I'll have to be quiet here. You can see me chewing here. It'll melt within about 15 seconds. Now I'm going to start to swish. Do that for 10 to 20 minutes, spit it out. And then the next thing you're going to do is get some water and swish this in between your teeth. Finally, you'll brush your teeth as normal, and I guarantee, do this even if it's just five minutes, ideally 10 to 20, but your mouth will feel so clean, you're killing bad bacteria. You're whitening your teeth, you're getting fresher breath. One other thing you can do in your oil pulling if you want to get additional benefits is add, along with the coconut oil, five drops of essential oils. You can do essential oil of frankincense, which actually helps support immunity. You can do lavender, which helps your gums. You can also do something like tea tree oil or a blend that has cloves in it or cinnamon, which actually can help kill off bad bacteria as well. Also doing a little essential oils with the coconut is something else you can do together. But just simply coconut oil, I recommend doing this two weeks straight every day, and then after that, twice a week. Hey, if you do that, you're going to bring your dental and oral health to the next level.