The Wellbeing Solution Exchange
Thursday, March 23, 2023
Do you secretly congratulate yourself for a victorious little wellbeing strategy you’ve discovered and successfully employed?
I do. Every time I floss my teeth in the morning, I feel like a champion because I went from being a person who got chastised in the dentist’s chair to being a person congratulated for superior oral health. The problem started back in the 70s. I grew up in the Midwest, where floss apparently hadn’t yet made its appearance. When I moved east for my first post-college job I was in for a big surprise. I didn’t even know what floss was! But I did come to find out how very difficult it is to introduce yet another bit of drudgery into the nightly routine.
The upshot: I was a flossing failure for years. I lived in dread of those twice-a-year appointments but nevertheless was still only able to initiate a (very temporary) flossing habit in the couple of days before, just enough time to present at the dentist’s office with a nice, traumatized set of bleeding gums. But then it all changed in the span of one appointment when, after taking a look at my mouth and listening to my sob story about how tired I am at night, an angelic dental hygienist kindly let me know that some people find it much easier to floss in the mornings. I looked at her in astonishment.
“Really? You can do that? It still counts?”
She shrugged. “Well, it may not be quite as good, but it will still make it harder for plaque to build up.”
I was gobsmacked. I have been a proud, dare I say vain, flosser ever since.
That’s not all. I’m on way to becoming a proud balance-on-one-leg tooth brusher, too. That’s a strength and balance building strategy I picked up from my sister.
Staying healthy is not easy. Just because something will make us feel better – even 100% better – it doesn’t mean we’ll be able to make ourselves do it. But often the problem is we just haven’t found the way that will work for us. It can take a lot of discovery to figure out that doing those rehab leg lifts first thing in the morning before getting out of bed is your ticket to a functional, pain-free tendon.
I’ve picked up a lot of my top wellbeing solutions from other people which makes me believe that a good strategy is like gold, a commodity you could trade with a friend for one of theirs. Which gives me an idea. Do you have a winning strategy for supporting one of the eight dimensions of wellbeing you’d be willing to contribute to
“The Wellbeing Solution Exchange Inventory” I just made up in my head?
Since writing that sentence, I’ve become a little obsessed with becoming a broker of wellbeing strategies. To that end, over the past few days I’ve been asking anyone I come in contact with if they have any solutions they’d like to share. I’m still building the inventory but have attached what I’ve gathered so far. This is a loose take-one, leave-one system. Or just take one; there’s a special wellbeing solution deal going on today. It’s Wellness Wednesday. 😊
Onto another brave, new day,
E