tldr: the dumbest best way I now start the day
A couple of months ago, my girlfriend and I had a fight about… brushing our teeth. She was pregnant and mentioned how important dental hygiene was, which unbelievably led to a bit of a bickering match. She was team 'you never brush your teeth in the morning', I was team 'I rarely see you brush your teeth at night.’ (This is part of an ongoing series of conversations making us come to the joint realisation we probably both have ADHD…)
but anyway… the discussion kicked off a strange personal challenge for next few months: making sure I brush twice a day.
My approach:
Do it immediately after to the toilet after getting out of bed. I ignored the ‘before vs after breakfast for tooth acid etc’ discussion and just tried to pair it with something that would ensure I always brushed.
Previously I’d intend to do it in the vague timeframe between breakfast and leaving the house, which made it too dependent on the breakfast (which could be skipped or late) and leaving the house (which, given home office, mightn’t happen until much later in the day by which time brushing was long forgotten).
Bonus:
After about 2 weeks and realising it was easy with my newfound ‘first thing in the morning rule’ – and to avoid the Roger Federer-arm look of only training one side – I levelled up with brushing with the 'wrong hand'.
Apparently using your non-preferred hand for otherwise quite automatic tasks increases neuroplasticity (c.f. chopstick theory). Not sure if I've gotten any better at crosswords as a result, but having something that’s ever-so-slightly 'hard’ to always do first thing in the morning has felt like a great way to start the day.
tbd whether the dentist notices
by No_Time_9111
4 Comments
I cannot believe there are people who don’t brush their teeth every morning and night.
No offence but I’ve been responsible for cleaning my own teeth since I was around 7 years old.
The idea of someone not brushing their teeth in the morning and going to work and speaking in their colleagues faces is genuinely mind-blowing to me.
Lol, wrong-handed teeth brushing?! Gotta say, adding a little chaos to the morning routine might just be the life hack we didn’t know we needed. Major props if you can also do chopsticks skills with the off-hand by the end of it! 😂😂
Also, what does having conversations with your partner about brushing teeth have to do with having ADHD? It‘s either laziness or non-educated (not seeing the need to doing it). People should stop relating all their flaws to ADHD
Secret ‘please download my habit tracker’ post