Daily Dose of English 17
Toothbrushes
Daily Dose of English 17
Intermediate
Hey, everyone. My name is Ben and you're listening to A Daily Dose of English. This is a short, simple podcast that you can listen to every day to improve your English. You can find the transcripts for all episodes and more on benslanguagelab.com. I'm glad you could make it today. In this episode, we're going to be talking about toothbrushes, those funny little sticks with some hairs on the end that you use to brush your teeth, toothbrushes, or a toothbrush in the singular if you're talking about just one, because I think about toothbrushes a little bit more often than average, which I think is a bit of a weird thing to say, but oh well, here we are. I'm recording a whole podcast episode on it. But I actually quite like brushing my teeth, which is sort of weird, but it really makes me feel clean and reset. It's like a mental reset in some ways, and I like to do it right after I wake up and before I go to bed, and it's a little bit of a ritual. However, I recently went to the dentist and learned that I brush too hard. I press too hard and I have been doing some damage to my teeth. And one of the big reasons is also because of the toothbrush that I use, because I've been using the exact same brand of toothbrush, not the exact same toothbrush, but the same brand of toothbrush for probably a decade, 10 years, a very long time, because I like the way that it's shaped. They're very simple toothbrushes, and they bend, like the head part that you actually brush your teeth with, bends back at a really nice angle. So if you imagine just a normal stick and that the last couple inches is just a little bit to the side at a nice, I think, 45 degree angle. And that's really comfortable for me to brush with. However, I've been using the bristles, those are the little hair parts, they're called bristles, the medium strength bristles, and pressing fairly hard, which has caused me to wear away some of my gums, that's the pink part of your teeth that cover up the roots of your teeth. Those are called your gums, yes, like chewing gum. And I've worn away a little bit of that, and so you can actually, in certain teeth, you can sort of see what is under there, right? So the part of your teeth that you see is called the crown, and then under there is called the root. And so if you expose your roots, then you're gonna be a little bit more sensitive to hot and cold, and it can hurt more. And so I've accidentally been exposing my teeth because I've been using a toothbrush that is really kind of hard and abrasive on my teeth. And so I am not going to do that anymore. I'm a lot more cautious now about my, how I'm brushing my teeth, and then I'm doing it lighter and not hitting the exact same places. I'm also going to buy the soft bristle versions of the toothbrush because they have those and I will probably want them in order to do even less damage to my teeth overall. But it was honestly a bit of a surprise. I knew that my teeth weren't perfect because I hadn't gone to the dentist in quite a while, but I guess I was surprised by how much damage I had caused by brushing my teeth with a strong toothbrush and doing it fairly strong. I think another reason that I did a good bit of damage to my teeth and my gums is because that I get into a rhythm and I do the very, very similar motions every time I brush my teeth. It becomes a sort of a ritual where I don't change much at all, and so I get a lot of repetitive pressure on the exact same points. So that means that I'm constantly hitting the same teeth or gums or whatever it might be, rather than giving my mouth a better overall clean, if that makes any sense. And so like I said, I'm going to brush lighter. I'm going to change up my routine and do it in a little more evenly and get the better bristles, the better toothbrush version so that I don't hurt my teeth as much. Because this whole going to the dentist and having to do some work has, I guess, shown me that I can take better care of my teeth and feel better, feel happier. Because when I went, the dentist pointed out to me a bunch of things that I noticed and I already knew, and she actually showed them to me and was like, yeah, this is why that's happening and you should probably not do that. And I was like, okay, yeah, you're right. And so I'm actually quite excited to fix these things because it will improve my oral health. Oral is having to do with the mouth, my oral health in general and my mood and my happiness, hopefully. Some hot or cold beverages definitely can leave me with a little bit of sensitivity in my teeth. But now I want to talk a little bit about that brand of toothbrush that I mentioned because I've been using them for over a decade. I'm pretty sure it's even more than that because I think it's really interesting. They're in no way paying me at all, obviously, but they're called Preserve. And I really like their toothbrushes because they're very simple. They're just one color. There's no extra padding or rubber or anything. And they're made from recycled yogurt cups. A large part of the body of the toothbrush is made of a recycled yogurt cup, which is kind of cool. And so, yeah, it's not 100% recyclable or whatever, but it is a better than a brand new toothbrush that is fresh plastic or whatever it is. And like I said, the angle is really nice. And the other cool thing is that you can always send in your old toothbrushes to them, and they'll recycle them again, right? They can reuse as not that many times, right? Plastic isn't infinitely recyclable, but it is better to use it more than once at least to make a brand new toothbrush, to break it down again and reuse what you can. They're a little bit more expensive than the average toothbrush because of that whole system, right? If they're going to have a green supply chain where there's fewer, I guess, emissions or fewer less waste, that's how you say it, less waste is created in the whole process. They're going to have to charge a little bit more because that's how just the world works. But they're still not that expensive, right? One toothbrush that's going to last you two to three months can cost a couple of dollars because you're going to use it over the course of maybe 100 days. And so that cost gets split up pretty, pretty well. And so I feel pretty good about that. And I do have all of my extra toothbrushes saved up because where I live now, I can't send them in easily. And so I'm sort of waiting to be able to take them back and then send them back in. I think they still do the recycling thing. I'm actually not sure of that, so I could be completely wrong. But the funny thing is that once I tried a different toothbrush, because it was a lot easier to get, but it was really, really uncomfortable. And it hurt my wrist because I had gotten so used to that lovely angle. Because some toothbrushes I've seen, instead of like the bristles being facing outwards, they kind of face in. So if you kind of imagine a hook or a J, like a letter J, having the bristles on the inside of that loop is really uncomfortable because you sort of have to cross your arm across your body to brush the opposite side. And so it really started to hurt my wrist. And I realized that the angle is a lot more important than I thought. And then I got one of the other brands because I realized you can buy them online. And it pretty much instantly fixed my wrist pain from brushing my teeth, which is never a sentence that I thought I'd have to say. But I guess here we are. I'm also the kind of person going on to other topics about toothbrushes. I'm also the kind of person who always likes to brush their teeth. If there's even like a remote possibility that I'm not going to sleep in my place, I'm going to have a toothbrush with me because I hate not brushing my teeth. Even if it's like a 5% chance, I'm going to find a way to bring a toothbrush with me because I just hate the feeling of sleeping without brushing my teeth. Same goes for in the mornings as well. I just want to brush my teeth. Sometimes I've even done it getting off of a long airplane flight. Even if it's not the morning or night, I just feel like I need a reset. The first thing I'll do is I'll go to the bathroom at the airport and I'll brush my teeth there, which is a little bit weird, but that's how we roll. You don't have to judge me for wanting to brush my teeth. But anyways, I think I've been rambling on enough about toothbrushes, which is a pretty weird topic. So let me know what you think about really random topics like this. Do you prefer to hear things that are a little more day-to-day? Or is this something that you also think is useful to learn and use as daily English practice? But anyway, that's all that I have for you today. Thank you very much for being here. I hope that you learned a few words or something interesting. And I'll see you again tomorrow for another episode. Have a good one. Bye!
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