Flickr Photo: Flickr Founder Caterina Fake. The photo's caption on Flickr includes "Floss, people!" So Appropriate for this.

Of course, everyone should floss every day. But it can be hard, right?

Recent studies are finding connections between the health of your mouth and other parts of your body, including your heart.¹

The medical community suspects a lot of disease starts in your mouth.² Flossing is the most important activity to maintain a healthy mouth.

I have sensitive gums, so if I don’t floss every day, my gums quickly get inflamed and bleed when I then floss.

I consider myself pretty good about flossing, but in the last six months I became even more consistent by eliminated an opportunity to negotiate with myself and put off flossing till the next day.

At my last visit my dental hygienist explained that by flossing every day you stop the bacteria from colonizing. For some reason that speaks to me a lot better than “stop plague build up”. The former seems like enemies on my teeth while the later just some clean up I can post-pone if I have to. If I don’t floss today, then the enemy will have already done damage and will have fortified their position.

My flossing mantra has become “Stop the Colonization!”

I’ve also played with “Destroy the colony!” Both phrases appeal to enjoyment of 4x³ computer strategy games.

Do you have a flossing mantra or other health mantras?

PS. HowStuffWorks has some good flossing instructions if you want to work on your technique. Technique, technique, technique!

1. Here are a couple of the many flossing and heart articles: WebMD undated article “Periodontal Disease and Heart Health” and Jill Aitoro’s 2000 article “Floss for the Heart“ [↩]
2. Some at risk individuals have to take antibiotics before visiting the dentist. [↩]
3. 4x:  “4X games are a genre of strategy video game in which players control an empire and “eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, and eXterminate”.” [↩]