Brushing your teeth has been shown to improve the health and longevity of your mouth bones and gums.
Consistent sleep has been shown to improve your overall physical and mental health.
Avoiding drugs and alcohol and cigarettes has also been shown to limit the risk of cancer and alcoholism and drug abuse. Avoiding them also saves money and you smell better.
Most of the time we do enough to survive.
Brush for one minute instead of two.
Sleep when exhausted. Wake up to an alarm.
Only having a couple drinks. Or infrequently smoking one substance or another.
But what does it look like to optimize your health and well-being. Does it take so much more that it’s unattainable? Or is that just the story we sell ourselves because it’s easier?
Everyone knows damn well that flossing does more for your teeth and gums than brushing. But brushing is easier. It’s harder to floss. Takes more mental and physical effort. So we don’t do it regularly.
Everyone knows that good quality sleep improves your life on many levels. But it’s easier to complain about being tired and to push ourselves until we drop from exhaustion than it is to take a fricking nap. (speaking for myself here) Also how the heck do you optimize sleep with kids? Please for the love of God tell me now.
Everyone knows drugs and alcohol are bad for you. Don’t even get me started on cigarettes. Don’t. I will destroy you on this one.
And yet….. we do what it takes to survive. Not what it takes to optimize the quality of our life. Because the here and now seems so much more urgent than five, ten, or twenty years from now. We can see tomorrow coming clearly. But not 2025. But before you know it you’ll be 30, 40, 60, 70 and will you have spent those precious years surviving every day? Or taking some simple and concrete steps to thriving all that time?
I know there’s a heck of a lot more I can be doing that doesn’t take that much more effort on my part. And I’m not ok with complacency. Isn’t it time you start optimizing?
