Reflections: body, mind, and spirit: Oral health, Biohacking for women, Fasting from distractions

Here's what I've been doing for Body, Mind, and Spirit.

Body

Oral health - Tongue scraping

Oral health is sometimes overlooked as an important part of overall health. After reading the benefits of and promotions of tongue scraping tools, I ordered one and am so glad I did! No doubt you have heard of or perform tongue brushing with your toothbrush - "scraping" of the tongue is performed with a plastic or metal instrument.

Tongue scraping has been practiced for centuries in traditional Indian medicine (Ayurveda). It is simply using a u-shaped tool across your tongue to remove bacteria. While brushing your tongue is good for breaking up some of the debris on the tongue, the scraping gets more of the dead cells, debris, and bacteria in the crevices.

Benefits of tongue scraping:

Reduces bad breath and improves oral health
Improves sense of taste
Removes harmful bacteria
Improved overall oral health - can minimize prolonged exposure to bacteria that can inflame your gums and cause cavities

How to:

Stick out your tongue, place the scraper as far back as you can without triggering your gag reflex
Drag the tongue scraper from back to front using moderate pressure
Rinse the scraper and repeat two to three more times once per day

There are some great tips for do-it-yourself oral care in the book, Holistic Dental Care - The Complete Guide to Healthy Teeth and Gums by Nadine Artemis.

Challenge for you:

Check out this tongue scraper from Wellnesse. I also use their tooth whitening toothpaste and charcoal toothpaste. Conventional personal care products, including toothpaste and mouthwash, can be detrimental to your health. Are you mindful of what personal care products you use daily?

Mind

Biohacking for women

My reading stack for 2023 keeps growing! Currently I've been purchasing anything I can on longevity and nutrition and exercise for middle-age individuals. I was able to complete one book already in my stack, The Spark Factor - The Secret to Supercharging Energy, Becoming Resilient, and Feeling Better Than Ever written by Molly Maloof, MD. She is the first person I've come across that writes on the subject of biohacking for women specifically.

From the book: Dr. Molly Maloof shares a program uniquely tailored to the biology of women - a plan that targets mitochondria, the power source of the cells. As she shows, the intense, all-or-nothing approaches commonly used by biohackers to optimize health - including sustained fasting, ultra-low-carb diets, and intense training - can be harmful, especially for women, because they create excessive stress in an already-stressed body, which can make us tired, weak, and prone to illness.

There is a great chapter in her book on women in different phases of their life, including perimenopause and menopause. This is an area I'm going to be exploring more of - stay tuned!

Challenge for you:

We are three months or a quarter of the way through the "new" year. Great time to look at your goals and your reading list. Include something that you can learn from and implement in your life. Never stop learning! What are you reading?

Spirit

Fasting from distractions i.e. social media, Netflix, "doom-scrolling"

It is probably not a shock to you nor the first time that you have heard how distracted we are all given technology and various social media outlets vying for our attention. From the prayer challenge, Lent #Pray40: Imitation of Christ I've done this Lenten season, one of the fasting suggestions was from social media. Professor and author Cal Newport has long been ringing the bell on our overuse of such things and has written books on the subject including Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World. His proposed philosophy is to radically reduce the time you spend staring at screens, focusing on a smaller number of digital activities that strongly support things you deeply value, and then happily ignoring the rest.

Challenge for you:

As the quote below suggests, let the freshness of spring cleanse and renew your soul. We can all start with an occasional fast from our many distractions. What's yours?

Quote I'm pondering - from Intelligent Change