Learn to brush your teeth with your left hand (2)

(If you are left-handed, please switch to your right hand to read this article)

In the last article, I explained the feeling of learning to brush my teeth with my left hand and reconnecting my nerves, and said

Learning is to reconnect, break comfort + deliberate practice + establish rigid needs

It is not necessary to instruct to brush your teeth in the left hand!

For this, I just created it myself, that is, after writing that article, I only brush my teeth with my left hand .

A wonderful thing happened! Originally I used to brush my teeth with my right hand, but after switching to my left hand, I still used to hold the toothbrush with my right hand first, then put on the toothpaste, then switch the toothbrush to my left hand and start brushing. Will use the right hand to reinforce the brush again!

Since I decided to only use my left hand to brush my teeth, I don't use my right hand to hold the toothbrush, but only my left hand, and the usual actions of unscrewing the toothpaste cap and squeezing the toothpaste have become a new learning, and that awkward feeling is back!

But on the contrary, I found that in the process of brushing my teeth, I can better understand the feeling of brushing my teeth.

Brushing with the right hand since childhood has become muscle memory, so when you brush your teeth, you will be cranky, wondering what you will eat later? What do you want to do in the morning meeting? Thinking what else to do today? My son is even better, and he can lie in bed and catch up on sleep while brushing!

Under the brushing action that has muscle memory, the feeling of brushing your teeth is often only the moment after brushing your teeth and rinsing your mouth. At other times, you are not living in the moment ! That is, you are disturbed by the miscellaneous sounds in your brain.

After completely switching to the left hand, which is not familiar with the brushing action, the feeling of brushing each tooth is quite clear, and it is also clear which tooth is brushed. Is this the feeling of living in the moment !! And when brushing your teeth seriously, your brain is actually very clear. The internal noise (or random thoughts) has been reduced a lot, and I can slowly experience the process of brushing my teeth. Is this the so-called flow experience ?

With this kind of experience, as the number of brushing with the left hand increases, the muscles gradually get used to it, the awkward feeling disappears, and the frequency of accidentally brushing too hard and hitting the gums decreases . In another drama, the ego in your head is pulling you back and forth from the past to the future, preventing you from living in the present .

Another right-handed person who switched to brushing with my left hand felt that I could break the bad habit of brushing with my right hand. I have been brushing my teeth with my right hand since I was a child. When I was a child, no one taught me that you can't brush your teeth with a saw (left and right brushing), but you should brush your teeth with the up and down swinging method, which is more clean and does not hurt your teeth. However, the right hand has become accustomed to that kind of brushing method. Although he wants to change it deliberately, it is often occupied by the lazy brain shortcut network. When brushing a little faster, it will return to the sawing method!

After switching to the left hand, there is no such problem, because all the training is heavy, as long as the training is done the right way at the beginning! Therefore, I am used to brushing up and down with my left hand instead of pulling the saw.

Listen to me brushing my teeth here, the summary is

Invest in a field that you are not familiar with. When the awkwardness is still there, you often learn the most and experience the most. When the awkwardness disappears and the sense of freedom rises, there is a high probability that you can learn the next skill.

The best way to change your old habits is to start over and live in ways you are not used to.