Tongue Scraping and Oil Pulling — Morning Oral Health Practices
Danta Dhavana (teeth brushing) and Jihva Lekhana (tongue scraping) followed by Gandusha (oil pulling) are classical Ayurvedic morning practices for oral and systemic health that modern research has dramatically validated.
Classical Ayurvedic Dinacharya includes specific oral hygiene practices upon waking: first, Jihva Lekhana (tongue scraping with a metal scraper — silver, gold, copper, or stainless steel — to remove the overnight accumulation of Ama toxins on the tongue's surface), then Danta Dhavana (teeth cleaning with astringent and bitter herbal preparations — neem, licorice, khadira), then Gandusha or Kavala (oil pulling — holding sesame or coconut oil in the mouth for 5-20 minutes before spitting). Each practice addresses both local oral health and systemic health: the tongue is a diagnostic mirror of organ health (different zones reflecting stomach, liver, kidneys, lungs), and removing Ama from the tongue before the body reabsorbs it is genuinely beneficial. Oil pulling's efficacy against the oral microbiome has been confirmed in multiple randomized trials.
After sleeping, one should clean the teeth and scrape the tongue — this destroys disease and gives freshness.
A 2009 randomized controlled trial in the Journal of Indian Society of Pedodontics and Preventive Dentistry confirmed that oil pulling with sesame oil was as effective as chlorhexidine mouthwash in reducing Streptococcus mutans bacteria and plaque indices in children — validating this ancient practice with modern clinical evidence.
Ashtanga Hridayam
Written about in
- What Ayurveda says about habit and discipline
The morning sequence is short and fixed in order: scrape the tongue with a metal scraper, clean the teeth with bitter herbs, hold sesame or coconut oil in the mouth for five to twenty minutes. Each step has a stated reason. The scraping removes the night's Ama before the body reabsorbs it, and the tongue is read as a map, its zones standing for stomach, liver, kidneys and lungs.