Do Adults Brush Their Teeth? How I Learned to Love Myself

This isn't going to be a rehashing of my tales of woe and how I overcame. Not today. I have a blog entry from a rough version of the first chapter of a memoir I tinker with here if you want to hear about my feelings.

This entry is to discuss your grooming habits. Your routine as an adult. At what point, did you realize (not as a forced habit from childhood or even one your doctor, spouse, boss says is capital I important) that you needed to brush your teeth?

I may be a gross kid. I'm not denying that my standards and your own may dramatically differ. What I am trying to ascertain is why you have these norms that you follow?  Is it due to your perception of healthy? Vanity and your appearance in photographs? "Cleanliness is next to Godliness"? 

I like to do experiments with how I maintain my flesh encompassed organs. Diet, exercise, sleep regimes, drugs (although I have tested the criminalized sort, I am referring to aspirin, diphenhydramine, caffeine, processed sugar and oxygen) and skin, teeth and hair care.   I am going to outline some of my views and would like to hear about your own.

Diet

 I eat a largely paleo diet consisting of vegetables, fruits, meats and certain nuts and legumes. However, I was born to a shepherd's pie and chocolate ice cream family, so processed less-than-nutritious foods have been a staple in my past and continue to beckon. I am strict about white breads, unnecessary sugar and starches without purpose but burgers go between buns in my house.  That being said, I have excess cookie jar space on my abdomen and am two pounds away from a BMI reading of obese. 

Excersize

 Yoga every damn day! If I am ever too stuck in my tunnel vision mind, I'll pop on a Yoga with Adrienne video and remember to take some time for my own self.  She may be dorky and remind you of your kindergarten teacher but this woman is incredibly inspiring!

Trail running, hiking, cycling and playing with weights are weekly. Rock climbing and mountaineering are my goals and I practice their movements and actualities as often as working allows. I have written about these hobbies already and they can be found in my blog. Then I have sporadic interests. For example, I have recently become obsessed with dancing. I began by doing ballet for a year and have expanded into hip-hop. I like breaking down the sections of videos such as

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Sleep

 I worked overnights for two years while I worked on my Master's. Combined with my own introverted self and the solitary feeling that 3 a.m. provides, sleep is a choice. A choice that I am horrible about making. If anyone has any suggestions and helping to establish a sleep schedule I am very interested!

Drugs

 I don't need caffeine but it sure does put me on top of the world. Aspirin (most anti-inflammatories and OTC medicines and EVERY "illegal" drug) should not be used excessively but there is too much money to be made for anyone to say: be stingy with the physically, mentally and psychologically altering items you swallow. 

During my work, school, maintain a life chaotic time period, I would pop a Benadryl to sleep and take a caffeine pill to stay awake. My tolerance grew and my mind became blurred and reliant on the contents pumped into my blood stream. I am a sugar addict but once I am off of that wagon, I can maintain. However, if my friends or family offer a sweet, my willpower gives way to polite deliciousness.  

Yoga has replaced my vices. I don't drink or smoke cigarettes. Habits that were hard to change in a college town where no one matures past their twenties within the larger smoke-and-drink-to-socialize world we live within.  The oxygen and calmness an inversion brings is profoundly more exhilarating than a shot and if I really want to party hard, I'll dance.

"No.  I don't think so. I mean, one is never completely certain when you  drink and do drugs whether the spirits that are moving through you are  the spirits from the bottle or your own. And, at a certain point, you  become afraid of the answer. That's one of the biggest things that keeps  people from getting sober, they're afraid to find out that it was the  liquor talking all along.   "I  was trying to prove something to myself, too. It was like, 'Am I  genuinely eccentric? Or am I just wearing a funny hat? What am I made  of? What's left when you drain the pool?'" said Tom Waits in an interview found here

Skin, Teeth and Hair

 This is the point of the story where the general consensus calls me a hippie. I brush my skin towards my heart in a circular pattern. Even if this is a crock, it exfoliates and gives me a moment of self-love satisfaction. I rarely wash my hair and am one of those "vinegar and baking soda" types (that occasionally cheats and uses castor and shea oil shampoos). I am a strong believer in braiding my hair for lengthy periods of time. Once it is loosened, I brush twice a day in every direction. No unnatural dyes, no unnaturally occurring chemicals, trying to return to using concoctions you could find in someone's backyard.  I have a pick and keep my own teeth plaque free and the gums resilient. I have used a brush but do so sparingly. My toothpaste is a baking soda mud recipe that I will gladly share. I was recently turned onto brushing with sticks that are chewed on and used to scrape the teeth gently. 

Deodorant is a strange innovation.  Rather than removing the bacteria that lives between your arm and chest, a balm is applied to prevent the sweat and mask any odor. This isn't something I believe in. However, I have three jobs and two require interpersonal relationships that would be effected by my unshaved armpits' scent resembling different Campbell's soup flavors. Essential oils and witch hazel have been my go-to funk eradicators. I wash my body with a bentonite clay and oil block of "soap."

 Fellow Steemians, what do you do to shine?  Let me know about your shampoos, dental appointments, favorite recipes and activities. Do you smoke weed? How does it affect you? 

Truly,

H