As described by Healthline: “Flossing is an important oral hygiene habit. It cleans and dislodges food stuck between your teeth, which reduces the amount of bacteria and plaque in your mouth. Plaque is a sticky film that builds up on teeth and contributes to cavities and gum disease.”
That statement alone tells us that flossing is increasingly important as we age, and to support the recommendation with dental practitioner approved procedures.
A Contrarian Approach to Flossing
But a recent essay in The New York Times entitled ‘Flossing’ took a hilariously contrarian approach to the subject. Not contrarian in the sense of advising against it. Contrarian in the sense of embracing a practice that most of us regard as a necessary chore with an unusually high degree of aesthetic enthusiasm.
The author of the piece, Wayne Koestenbaum, opened like this: “Flossing is a game I take seriously. I would rather floss than shop. I would rather floss than write.”
Seriously?
The Proper Excavation
The way Mr. Koestenbaum puts it, you might think you’re reading the work of an obsessive archeologist searching for clues about the origin of life in a remote tomb. After rinsing his mouth “to loosen low-hanging fruit” he begins what he refers to as “the proper excavation.”
This is the equivalent to exploring a labyrinth which leads to “a second round of digging to remove the accumulation I missed on the first tour.” He refers to a gallery of “worst offenders,” a list including celery, scallions, parsley, and kale. Greens, he explains, “involve stringy residue” which he can’t wait to dispose of.
The Dish of Steamed Broccoli That Started It All
Mr. Koestenbaum began his career as a flosser relatively late in life, at 22. The precipitating incident was a dish of steamed broccoli which, after consuming it, all got trapped between his cuspids and bicuspids, causing his gums to bleed.
That did it. He bought himself a reel of floss and immediately went to work on his flossing future, one thread at a time.
He talks approvingly of his mother, “a virtuoso of the Waterpik” – a device he considered to be “an instrument of higher learning.” Ultimately, he recognizes that flossing – for him at least – is no more than a therapeutic pastime, a diversionary “nervous habit best kept private, like knuckle-cracking.”
How to Floss Properly
For those of you resistant to the subtleties of flossing and just want to get on with it, the experts at Healthline offer the following flossing instructions:
- Break off about 18 to 24 inches of dental floss. To hold the floss correctly, wind most of the floss around both of your middle fingers. Leave only about 1 to 2 inches of floss for your teeth.
- Next, hold the floss taut with your thumbs and index fingers.
- Place the dental floss in between two teeth. Gently glide the floss up and down, rubbing it against both sides of each tooth. Don’t glide the floss into your gums. This can scratch or bruise your gums.
- As the floss reaches your gums, curve the floss at the base of the tooth to form a C shape. This allows the floss to enter the space between your gums and your tooth.
- Repeat the steps as you move from tooth to tooth. With each tooth, use a new, clean section of floss.
Healthier Gums, Happier Smile
Mr. Koestenbaum is clearly an imaginative flosser, someone who has turned this tiresome daily practice into a quasi-neurotic art form. He sees flossing as a “tactile adventure” which enables him to treat his teeth and gums as a keyboard or canvas – as “a place to dig, develop and design.”
This is nonsense, of course, cleverly though it is expressed. The author of the piece has turned a necessary chore into a game. Good idea! Perhaps we all should adopt his philosophy in practice and benefit from healthier gums and a happier smile too.