You know how people joke about “hibernation” during the winter? We eat more, sleep more, and exercise less, at least in any part of the country that experiences cold and snow. Well, I am not proud to admit it, but I fell into that trap these past few weeks.
Looking back at my Interim, though, I realized that at least I experienced something health-related. My “hibernation den” was not just your average dorm room. An aspiring dentist, I spent 120 hours this January doing a shadowing internship in the offices of general dentists, oral surgeons, endodontists, and a pediatric dentist. If I had to pick the most important thing I learned from all of these professionals, it is that your oral health can have an enormous impact on the rest of your body’s well-being.
A lot of us take our mouths for granted; after all, they’re not very big (at least not literally, but figuratively, on the other hand…). But think about it: you do a lot with your mouth. You eat, drink, speak, and kiss with your mouth, and it is a gateway into your body for lots of little organisms floating around out there on this here planet. There are around 600 species of bacteria in your mouth (most of them, as in 99.08% of them, are harmless), and they LOVE sugar even more than the kid with the sweetest sweet tooth on the block. The problem is that they turn that sugar into acid. This acid not only eats away at your teeth, but at your gum tissue – that’s why they bleed if you haven’t flossed in a while.
Now to make my point: gingivitis, periodontitis, and tooth infections are serious business. That 0.02% of bacteria that I did not account for earlier can get into those inflamed tissues and hitch a ride on your blood cells, giving way to such problems as diabetes, osteoporosis, pregnancy problems such as low birth weight babies, respiratory problems, and most significantly, heart disease.
I don’t mean to scare you, but these problems are as real as obesity in people who don’t exercise, and they can arise from something as small as a few millimeters of inflammation inside your mouth. That being said, oral diseases are so easy to prevent, and require only a few minutes of your time. Hopefully everyone brushes their teeth (two times a day, two minutes each time), but I call on each and every one of you to start flossing regularly so that you can get off that acidic plaque and tartar in the places your tooth brush can’t reach. If your gums bleed at first, don’t worry. I PROMISE that will stop in a few days. And finally, get your teeth checked every six months at your friendly neighborhood dentist, and they will do the rest.
Next week, I will be back with fitness in the common meaning of the word. I plan on heading to Tostrud tonight for at least one hour. But if you’re stuck in that hibernation rut and don’t have 30 minutes to spare for exercise, please tell me you at least have four minutes a day for what I’m sure is a beautiful smile.
By the way: for those of you who want something about exercise this week, here’s a great link to The Top 6 Calorie-Burning Workouts.
Getting off my soapbox now,
Emily