5 ways to take a self care moment each day
Take a moment to discover how your teeth are excellent sensory organs which can help to alert you to your subconscious status anxiety activities that can impact both your physical and mental wellbeing
Dr Bianca Piscioneri
Why should you even take a moment to even think about this?
Check right now: Do you know if your upper and lower teeth are touching as you are reading this?
Are your lips feeling somewhat tight and pressed together firmly?
You should know that this is a parafunctional status and not a normal physiological state of being every day, let alone multiple times throughout the day.
"...we find ourselves swimming with this type of stress and frenzy of life all the time..."
Every day, through the comprehensive examinations of our patients at GGDS, we constantly see evidence of long standing unabating chronic state of tensions. This is manifested in muscle tensions of the face, cheek biting, tooth clenching and grinding, constant lip pursing and dehydrated tissues. All of this is often subconscious and these signs are part of our prehistoric flight or fight brain reactions to a perceived threat, like how we would be prepared to react as if we were facing a bear. These reactions are important to our survival and are still with us today, but should quickly ease as the threat eases.
The issue in our daily lives is that this is so often not the case and we find ourselves swimming with this type of stress and frenzy of life all the time, where this then becomes an undesirable habit.
"...this status anxiety in the web and flow of our lives needs to be checked on and rebalanced every day..."
In our contemporary society, our daily lives are often full with wanted and unwanted bombardment of incoming information that our brain needs to process quickly, whether it likes it or not. There are deadlines to think about and meet, achievements to strive for, stresses to face, and unexpected events to deal with.
In my view, this status anxiety in the web and flow of our lives needs to be checked on and rebalanced every day, and throughout the day, to help prevent a build up of unwanted tension that can adversely affect our quality of life.
Here are 5 rituals you can create each day to help your physiology and enhance your general well-being.
Hydrate and Hydrate!
Soak up the benefits of water
Start your day with a warm glass or two of water before breakfast and before you have any other drink, regardless of whether it is caffeinated or not. We have known for decades, with scientifically backed studies, that having warm water first thing in the morning stimulates saliva flow and you can feel the saliva frothing up in your mouth immediately. Your digestion is also kick started in this way. Given that our brains and the rest of our bodies are about 70% water, it is no surprise that we function better when hydrated. Sip throughout the day to help ease the 4pm afternoon slump.
Check where your teeth are throughout the day
The importance of 2mm of air between your teeth
You would be surprised how often you will catch yourself with your teeth clamping together and lips tight and pursed. This could be stress related or simply a long standing negative habit.
To help break this habit and negative cycle, try placing your tongue between your teeth for a few seconds. Just by engaging with this self awareness, you are helping ease the tension and resetting the mechanoreceptors present in the ligaments of your teeth.
The mouth and orofacial tissues are densely populated by many classes of sensory receptors. These receptors send signals to the brain on all sorts of important things, such as load on your teeth. Your teeth should always be 2mm apart. 2mm of all important Air Space. In fact they never really touch even during the chewing process. Try placing your tongue behind your front teeth on the gum line for a few seconds at a time. This will help to ease the tensions in your facial and neck muscles.
As for the lips, try applying the Hydra Re-New Lip Care straight after brushing your teeth to help nourish, hydrate and protect your lips and ease the tension in them. When your lips feel naturally fuller, they are not as pursed and this in turn helps to influence keeping your teeth apart.
Stop and breathe...deep
When we stop, it means we pause for long enough to initiate the sense of beginning again, a type of renewal in a mini-moment. Try stopping 3 times a day for 5 breaths only. The operative word here is to STOP and exist for a moment, regardless of what you might be doing. Take a deep slow breath using your diaphragm area, exhale slowly dropping your shoulders and relax your lower jaw, letting it part from your upper teeth slightly and unlock your lips. Take 5 breaths in this way.
I ask my patients to schedule this 3 times in their day and it is remarkable how much they start to look forward to this ritual and report feeling more in control of their time and rejuvenated in a moment of time.
Take advantage of the power of fragrances in your day
Feel your immediate personal space with fragrances which energise you, calm or refresh you. The power of fragrances to enhance the mood is legendary throughout the history of time and is scientifically proven to influence our feelings.
Try spritzing our Parfums de Provence fragrances, like the Parfum Mimosa in the morning for its billowing freshness or as pick me up in the late afternoon. Refresh with Rose de Mai and touches of spring freesia, or calm your senses with Lavender and take a journey within this fragrance with French violet, vanilla and chypre accords and the warm sun notes of Provence, South of France. We have chosen these fragrances exactly for these reasons, every day little luxury elixirs which can be easily carried around in a handbag, placed in your office drawer and played with however you like and feel in the moment.
Smile
Smiling is so good for your brain. Start doing this first thing in the morning and repeat through the day.
This is a fake it 'til you make it strategy. Take advantage of your inherent biology and neuronal connections. A natural mood enhancer, smiling creates positive, relaxing and pleasant feelings by causing the brain to release endorphins, dopamine, serotonin and other feel-good factors into your system. By practicing smiling, you are effectively training your brain to respond with making these feel-good factors.
When you smile at others you are creating a rewarding positive loop of interaction that further reinforces all-round positive feelings and well-being.