Tag: Toothbrush

Everything is relative – toothbrush edition

The human brain is so easy to fool – just mix up absolutes and relatives.

Oral B Cross-action brush heads
Oral B tooth whitening brush heads

I use Oral-B’s electric toothbrush with the CrossAction brush heads. Last week, I noticed that the brush head had worn out, and we’d run out of replacement stock at home. We still had an unopened Pro White (teeth whitening) brush head that came with the toothbrush, so I started using it. I also ordered an 8 pack of CrossAction brush heads off Amazon.

I’d been using the new brush head for a week when got this niggling feeling that maybe using a whitening brush head daily isn’t that good for my teeth. What if it was hurting the enamel or some such thing? (I’m no dentist!)

So, I opened one of the new Cross Action brush heads as well, and started alternating between the two. At the same time, I (re)started brushing teeth twice a day. In the morning, I’d brush with the whitening brush heads as before, and in the evening with the new Cross Action brush heads.

Of course, in absolute terms, I’m still using it at the same frequency as before. So, if there was any damage being done by it, it’s still being done at the same rate. But by looking at it relatively, I’m only using it half the time. So, it makes me feel good.

We, humans, understand relatives easily, and are pretty rubbish at absolutes (or at least it takes an effort). This makes the mixing of absolutes and relatives as one of the most common ways to fool us – something that marketers and politicians employ quite well.

And when there’s no marketers and politicians, we fool ourselves. With toothbrush heads.

Pilates and the 2 minute tooth brushing

The electric toothbrush I’ve been using last couple of years comes with a two-minute buzzer – meant as an indicator for how long to brush your teeth (at a minimum).

As would be expected, I’ve rarely ever got to the buzzer – finishing my brushing in a minute or so, well below the suggested time. Of course my teeth are in a crap state.

A few months ago I started going to a pilates class once a week. However, it was clear to me that once a week wasn’t enough, and I couldn’t afford to go more (both financially and time-wise).

As a compromise, the instructor offered a few suggestions on how to get a few exercises in a usual day. One of those suggestions was to do single leg stands while brushing teeth – stand on left leg when brushing the right side, and vice versa. This one stuck.

A couple of months in, and the other side effect of this pilates exercise is becoming clearer. As I’ve become better at single leg balancing, I try to stay longer on each leg, and thus spend longer cleaning my teeth.

The result: In over a month, I’ve never stopped short of the buzzer :)

The other side effect: I now need to charge my toothbrush weekly, after running out of power twice, against the once in 2-3 weeks I use to do earlier.

So, stronger legs, better balance, and healthier teeth. It’s a win-win :)

Try it out..