Considering the calorific qualities of your daily meals is only one aspect that should always be under your firm attention. It is one thing keeping an eye on how what you eat will affect your weight, as well as your overall health. But another thing to look out for is what effect anything you ingest will be having on your oral hygiene.

When it comes to keeping your teeth white and healthy-looking, there are certain foods that are far better than others. These can loosely be termed ‘detergent foods'. The number one quality these should possess is that they should be crisp and firm.

The obvious advantage of this of oral hygiene is that unlike brushing teeth that can occasionally be forgotten, we all have to eat every day. All that rubbing up and down of your teeth with a brush can eventually seem like a bit of a chore. But choosing foods with proactive cleaning properties can be exciting. As you get into detergent foods you'll build up your own favourites – foods that you don't just enjoy for their taste, but also for their nutritional and bacteria-slaying properties!

Foodstuffs falling into this category are excellent for giving your teeth a rigorous workout, basically by the force of friction. In much the same way as your toothbrush will rub against the enamel, as well as scraping along the gums, these foods will help to remove plaque or bacteria by applying pressure. A lot of fruits and vegetables seem almost bespoke-designed to achieve the optimum detergent effect. If these were to be arranged into any sort of league table, then those examples that would constantly be battling for the premiership trophy would include celery, apples and raw carrots.

As well as forming the components of healthy salads, these are all relatively cheap foodstuffs. They are also terrific for children because it is actually pleasant and satisfying to really crunch into something with your teeth. Youngsters also go for brightly-coloured items, so will enthusiastically tuck into chopped uncooked carrots, or crimson apples.

Another excellent example of a 'detergent' food is popcorn. It is definitely one of life's pleasures to sit around on a lazy afternoon absorbing an entertaining family film. This experience is topped by having a large bowl of popcorn within easy delving reach of each participant. The popcorn itself is very good at getting right into the recesses of your teeth. Even better, popcorn has a porous quality that allows it to soak up saliva- and with that, unwelcome bacteria.

When it comes to planning your meals, it makes sense to ensure that you leave at least one type of detergent food to the very end. So once you have had your fill of courses that have left you with rich sauces or juices, simply pick up an apple and crunch away. This is a far more recommended way to conclude any feast than gorging on teeth-staining, sugar-infused chocolate mints, or pungent cheeses that are already riddled with their own bacteria colonies.

A large part of maintaining curly hair is down to how you go about washing it. Styling hair like this is tricky enough, but before you get that far you should really follow a particular course of action.

The easiest way to achieve this is to set yourself a list of steps. The first is straightforward. When you come out of a shower, resist the urge to rub your hair vigorously with a towel. Instead, what you really want to do is to dab it gently, in a ‘blotting' motion. This will allow the towel to absorb moisture, rather than you going for an impatient all-out-assault to get that hair dried! Energetic rubbing of wet hair will only cause damage and this will eventually lead to that nemesis of all curly haired individuals – frizzy hair!

Of course, if you're hair is on the coarse side, it will require more focused attention. What you want to look out for is a silicone sealant that you can apply to the length of your hair prior to styling, or using any products. As you introduce this sealant, you should avoid applying it to the hair nearest your scalp. The good news is that there are various options available on the shelves of both supermarkets and more highly-specialised salons.

For fine curly hair, a slightly different course of action is required. Rather than a sealant, you should employ a silicone spray, and apply the minimal amounts to the length of your hair. As before, you want to ensure this gets into you hair thoroughly, but avoid the hair growing nearest to your scalp.

Lightweight styling gels are available if you only require minimal hold. If you require a firmer, longer-lasting effect with your products, there are many styling liquids and cream gels on the market. If you are in any doubt about which products to invest in, simply ask the assistant at the counter who will be able to provide you with all the advice you require.

To consider is what to do as you hear begins to dry. Allowing this to occur naturally is by far the best option. Alternatively, if you are pressed for time, using a blow-dryer is perfectly acceptable, provided you have it set at low heat and blast, and use a diffuser attachment. Controlling the force of the blast that is being directed at your hair will allow your curls to better maintain their consistency. As you work through your hair, squeeze the curls gently, lifting it at the roots as you proceed. A good tip here is to apply a styling cream in the first instance.

There are many foodstuffs on the market that are highly recommended by specialists for their abilities to help maintain healthy teeth. Some are perhaps fairly obvious; others less so.

Herbal tea

Overall, tea is generally regarded as being unsuitable for cleaning teeth, as it possesses chemicals like tannin that will have an adverse affect on tooth colour. But there are many natural teas where the opposite is the effect. Herbal teas, which are infused, are actually a terrific way to keep your teeth in tip-top condition. Green tea has, amongst other ingredients, polyphenol antioxidant plant compounds. These come with a powerful set of cleaning resources. They will help to reduce plaque, as well as combating gum disease and reducing cavities.

Dairy products

Believe it or not, cheese actually contains some natural cavity-fighting agents. It also contains a range of vitamins that will help to preserve the integrity of the enamel, keeping your teeth strong. Cheese possesses phosphate and calcium, two substances that balance your mouth's natural pH. It also not only preserves but also rebuilds damaged tooth enamel. Because it produces a lot of saliva, it assists in the way your mouth combats bacterial infection- killing the very bacteria that cause gum disease, tooth decay and cavities to form.

Dairy foodstuffs like yoghurt and milk are excellent for your dental hygiene because of their low acidity. This means that wearing of the teeth is kept to a minimum. There is also little in the way of decay-promoting sugar present.

Milk is one of the best sources of calcium there is; and this element is the main component of your bones and teeth.

Fruit and vegetables

Fruits and vegetables are often, by their very nature, excellent for keeping our teeth cleaned. The obvious ones are apples, but as long as the natural consistency of these products is relatively strong, then they are always recommended for keeping your teeth well-maintained. Eating something like raw carrots, or indeed any fruit or vegetable where are really have to crunch into the flesh, will provide a naturally abrasive action. The friction from this will keep your teeth scrubbed.

These foodstuffs are also a tremendous source of vitamins. Kiwi fruits, apples and strawberries all possess Vitamin C. In chemical terms, this is the element that binds cells together. When Vitamin C is neglected, you're gum cells can break down, rendering them susceptible to disease. Vitamin A is to be found ina diverse range of foods, notably carrots, sweet potatoes, broccoli and pumpkins. This vitamin is vital for the formation of tooth enamel.

The key point is that any vegetable tat is crunchy and requires a certain degree of effort to actually chew in order to break it down will help clean your gums. For this reason, raw vegetables are always much better for keeping your teeth and gums clean. As well as having a solid consistency that actually feels better when biting down into the flesh, their natural flavours remain sealed in. Once vegetables begin to get cooked there is always the very real danger of them being overcooked, when they will not only lose their teeth-protecting qualities, they'll also taste a lot worse!

In the modern age, with so much technology surrounding us, from computers to smart phones to widescreen televisions, our eyes are constantly under attack. It is hardly any surprise that the number of people reporting to their local opticians complaining of eye-strain or diminished sight is on the increase. Looking after your eyes has never been so important. So what are the practical steps that we can take to look after ourselves?

If you happen to work in an office where you are constantly staring into a screen, then it practically goes without saying that you have to take certain steps to ensure you do not do permanent damage to your vision. The recommended time allowance to be hunched over your machine working on documents, or surfing the net, or even reading tips such as these, is around 20 minutes. Thereafter you should physically move your eyes away from screen for a period of rest time.

Science has yet to prove that workers whose job involves staring at computer screens are likely to suffer permanent eye damage. But research does indicate the increased likelihood of dry eyes, or eye-strain. Computer screens all emanate background glare. This can cause muscle fatigue within the eyes, especially since the settings are rarely at the optimum condition for each individual user. If you work in an environment where you share IT equipment, then someone might find a screen too dark; the next user might complain about it being far too bright.

Even if you are using a device on your own at home, many of us prefer the convenience of simply firing up the machine and getting down to our usual tasks at whatever factory setting it arrived with. Altering screen resolutions and brightness levels involves going into control panels that can seem tiresome.

When you are concentrating at a computer screen, it is only natural not to blink. Although it will probably seem unnatural at first, if you can try to make the effort to blink - perhaps twice a minute as you look at documents - then this will help to counter dry eyes.

There are tell-tale signs that will inform you if your eyes are undergoing any particular levels of strain. If your eyes feel sore or tired, or even tearful, then it's probably time to take a break. The one good thing about surfing the net and looking at any number of different websites is that the very nature of this activity precludes excessive eye-strain.

Web developers are consciously aware of the need to create legible web pages. For this reason, websites these days tend to be designed to a certain is aesthetic. You will rarely find great slabs of unbroken text. On the contrary, information is imparted to a much better extent if it is broken down into easily digestible paragraphs, with important points emphasized in bold text, or arranged into bullet-pointed lists. There will also be a plethora of photographs or images that will guide the viewer's eye fluently down the page.