I went to the dentist this week, and I am here to report the distressing news that brushing and flossing twice a day does help keep your teeth clean and keep tooth decay at bay.
Making time for twice-yearly cleanings doesn’t hurt either.
It’s one of those things we all know, things we’ve been hearing since childhood, that everyone knows is helpful — that everyone has known for generations is helpful — but it’s not fun or glamorous or new.
Brush and floss your teeth. Make sure to get enough sleep and a reasonable amount of exercise. Eat fruits and vegetables frequently and sweets and other junk food sparingly.
Make time for seeing friends and connecting with people. Keep your mind active by learning new things.
There’s an app, or lots of apps, for all of those things, and if that helps you stay on track in a world that increasingly bombards us with messages that seem intended to distract and agitate, that’s fine.
But those apps aren’t really necessary. Nor is the “system” for keeping you on track that I recently saw advertised for $100. It was, essentially, a box with index cards.
Don’t get me wrong: I love to-do lists. Sometimes I’ll complete a task and add it to this list just for the pleasure of crossing it off. But I’ll use a notebook that lives on my desk or in my bag, or sometimes just the back of an envelope.
At the risk of coming off like an old crank, for a lot of things, we know what works:
Go outside and, as the young people say, touch grass. Connect with the natural world.
Drink water. Take a nap if your body is tired; exercise if your mind is tired but your body isn’t.
Talk to people, real, actual people, instead of screen avatars. Think about what you’re saying, and think just as much about what you are hearing from them. Yelling into the void isn’t really communicating, it’s just making noise.
Pray. Communicate with God. Talk to God about everything that is worrying you. Use the prayers you learned as a child, or use your own words, but spend time in the presence of the divine. And don’t just talk to God; listen as well. Listen for what God is calling for you to do. It might not be anything big. But if we look for the next right thing, the next way we can live in God’s love and show that love to our neighbors, we won’t go wrong.
I’m not saying I always manage to follow my own advice. Too often, I get sucked into social media or games on my phone or a thousand other things. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t work.