How fast is your mile?

If you needed just one more reason to start an exercise routine here it is....

Researchers at the Cooper Institute in Dallas in conjunction with University of Texas Southwest Medical School found that men and women in their 40's and 50's ability to run a mile in under 8 (for men) or 9 (for women) minutes correlated to a low risk of heart disease in their senior years. Men and women who could not run a mile in under 10 (men )or 12 (women) minutes has a much higher chance of developing heard disease in their senior years.

However, there is nothing special about running. You could also be doing any other cardiovascular work (or better yet, mix it in with some light strength training) like swimming or biking or zumba or whatever the latest craze at the YMCA. Just do it regularly.

Locally, 1st Place Sports or the Florida Striders are great for beginners and experienced runners alike to find groups and fellowship and accountability for your runs. Good Luck!

What is your sentence?

I am reading a thought provoking book called "Drive" by Daniel Pink which talks about what motivates us. I just came across a section where he references Clare Boothe Luce who was one of the first women to serve in the US Congress. She told then President John F. Kennedy, "A great man is one sentence." For example, Abraham Lincoln was: "He preserved the union and freed the slaves."

Using this as an exercise can be a way to discover or clarify a greater purpose in your life which can be useful for staying motivated and driven. I imagine you could have different sentences for different stages of your life, but at any one stage focus on being great in just one sentence. Something you can be passionate about and strive to achieve. I think I have a sentence for home: "He honored God in his leadership and interactions with his wife and children" and also a sentence for my business: "He created an environment in his dental practice that helped parents succeed in establishing lifelong health for their children." As I grow older and (hopefully) wiser, my sentence may change to involve children's oral health nationally or at a county health level or maybe teaching at a school.

So I challenge all who are reading this on FB or my blog to contemplate your own sentence for your present stage, and add yours below in the comment section. If you are like me, your first few attempts will be very longwinded, but work to get it parsed down to one short, concise sentence. This could be fun. What's your sentence???

A pacifier that won't mess up teeth??!!

I was looking at the most recent journal to come across my desk when an article on pacifiers and open bites caught my attention. Apparently there is a new pacifier from "Dentistar" that claims to avoid causing open bites. So researchers compared 42 kids with a NUK, 42 kids with a Dentistar, and 36 with no pacifier. The Dentistar significantly reduced the open bite over the NUK at mean age 16 months. So while limited pacifier use is still best, if your child is pacifier addicted, you may want to consider trying out the Dentistar design. Or recommendation, no matter what pacifier you choose, is to keep the pacifier reserved for times when you child is overtired and overstimulated and needs pacifying. It should not be a babysitter or, as our friends across the pond call it, a dummy.

YEAH! Thanks to all the wonderful volunteers who made this years Give Kids a Smile an amazing success once again. Give Kids a Smile events provide free dental services to low income families who do not qualify for medicaid or have dental insurance. This year we saw 78 patients and provided $41,000 of dental services. We had great kids this year who endured and perservered, many of them getting all their dental needs completed, or the major portion of what they needed. Our goal, as always, was to keep kids out of pain for the coming year, protect their adult teeth, and help them see the value of healthy eating habits and dental care. By any standard, this year was another success.

December food Drive

Merry Christmas!

We had so much fun with the Thanksgiving Food Drive we decided to do another one.

Please join our staff as we help families in need this holiday season. Here's how you can help. From now until December 14th, we will be collecting canned goods and grocery store gift cards. Our goal is to provide a Christmas meal for 5 families. For every item you donate, your child's name will be entered into a drawing to win gift basket from our office valued at over $100. The more items you bring, the greater the chance you have to win. So clean out your pantry and help someone who is less fortunate receive an early Christmas gift. As always, thank you for your continued support in helping us to reach the community one smile at a time!

Many Blessings to you and your family this Christmas season!

Myers Pediatric Dentistry

Thanksgiving food drive

I am a little late on notifying our readers about this year's food drive, but there is still time to bring canned food items by the office before Wednesday. Every item of food donated will allow for 1 raffle entry into this years thanksgiving dental basket full of goodies. So swing by the office, say hello, and drop off your food items to help provide food for the local food pantries. Thanks to our great patients these past few weeks, we already have a good start on this year's food drive. We just need your help to finish strong.

Boys and their videos (and ADHD)

Every once in a while I come across in interesting idea that I feel must be shared with those of you who occasionally check in on my blog. Usually is it tooth related, occasionally medically related, but most always kid related. This one is for the parents wondering about how much their kids should be "plugged in" to games and TV and internet. There is a growing body of research that indicates we should limit the amount of electronic babysitting we do. Especially interesting is what happens to ADHD type behaviors when we unplug kids, engage them in conversations and "force" them into unstructured play. Please enjoy this. It comes from Jeff Myers (no relation) who has a ministry called Passing the Baton about raising up the next generation.

Dr. Gary

Entertainment-Soaked Culture Damages Kids' Brains; Here's the Antidote
Jeff Myers, Ph.D.

Over consumption of media among Christians is an enormous concern. According to a study I conducted in 2003, the average Christian young man is involved in 33.25 hours a week of "screen time" (watching movies, playing video games, surfing the internet). Girls averaged 27 hours a week - the difference being that boys play a lot more video games.
That was seven years ago. Since then, the advent of Wii, smart phones, Blu-ray, and hyper-realistic video games have certainly only made the problem more acute.

While all of these so-called advancements have been coming about, brain scientists have been busy doing some fascinating research of their own - studying the hi-tech culture's effect on the brain. And the conclusions are simply startling.

How the Brain Works
We only have to understand a few basic brain functions to grasp how our entertainment-soaked culture affects the brains of teens. Bear with me for a quick anatomy lesson.

Take a look at this picture of the human brain. The frontal lobe, shaded in purple, is the executive center. This part of the brain lights up when you come up with a plan and execute on it. In the center, in red, is the nucleus accumbens - a collection of neurons that forms the brain's pleasure center. When a person experiences pleasure, this part of the brain displays stimulation.

Here's what to keep in mind: the brain was designed in such a way that work and accomplishment stimulate the executive center of the brain (purple), which in turn stimulates the pleasure center of the brain (red). Work brings satisfaction, and the desire for life satisfaction motivates people to work.

The Effect of an Entertainment-Soaked Culture on Kids

So what does a culture like ours do to the brains of teens?

In his book Boys Adrift Leonard Sax reported on a study of 7 to 14-year-old boys which found that playing video games lights up the pleasure center of the brain while simultaneously shutting off blood flow to the executive center of the brain. In effect, these games offered boys the sense that they had accomplished something without actually having done so.*

Consider the shocking implications. The games children play are designed to bring effortless pleasure (movies and music have the same effect). Over time, this slickly produced entertainment "tricks" the brain into by-passing the executive center, making it more rewarding to pursue entertainment and less rewarding to accomplish anything of value. Academic work plummets. Social relationships suffer. And massive entertainment corporations make out like bandits, reaping billions in profits.

Quite frankly, if you're a parent, teacher, or youth minster, this is horrible news. How could we have allowed the most privileged generation in history - in terms of spendable income, opportunity for education and travel, and access to information - to quietly amuse itself to death?**

The Antidote is Not What You Would Expect

If you're thinking, "Well, the damage is already done," here's some good news.

There is a clear, simple way to rescue teens from the cultural addiction: engage them in conversation in the context of doing real things. Let's look at two aspects of this answer.

1. Do real things. A Christian school headmaster friend of mine was recently approached by several parents whose children had been prescribed medications for ADHD and bi-polar disorder. They trusted their doctors but wondered, "Is there any way we can help our kids without having to turn to these strong medications?" The headmaster wisely proposed the parents give the following plan a try:

Take out TVs, Ipods, video game consoles, and computers from your kids' bedrooms.
Allow no more than 30 minutes of video gaming per week.
Set a bedtime of 9pm on weeknights, 10pm on weekends.
Provide three nutritious meals a day (note that the headmaster had to define "nutritious" for the parents).
Plan for one hour of playing outside every day, and three hours on the weekend days.
Amazingly - after a few months of this regimen - all of the children showed far fewer symptoms and were doing significantly better in school (without medication!). For these kids, there was an undeniable connection between unplugging and thriving.

In a similar vein, many parents are starting to take seriously studies done by Dina Borzekowski, Linda S. Pagani and others that demonstrate a correlation between a child's relatively innocuous television viewing and lower test scores. In fact, public health advocates have caught on and launched a "No Child Left Inside" initiative that appears to be gaining steam.

A quick word of warning: An entertainment-soaked culture affects the brain in similar ways to a chemical addiction. So don't be surprised if heavily plugged-in kids express bitterness, anger, accusation and even paranoia when they get unplugged. Many parents will cave in to the pressure because they can't handle seeing their children be unhappy, even for a short time. A few parents, however, will find wise ways to replace screen time with real things and intentional conversation. In the long run, kids who overcome this withering addiction will be significantly better prepared to live healthy, purposeful lives.

2. Engage them in conversation. Language lights up the brain. And as David Caplan, a neurologist at Massachusetts General Hospital, points out: in order to trigger the use of language, both motivation (from the executive center) and arousal (from the pleasure center) are required.

Language seems to be a bridge that reconnects the broken-down relationship between the executive and pleasure centers of the brain. Notice that this involves active language use, not just passive language reception. We're talking two-way, engaging, in-person conversations. And that puts the ball squarely in your court to communicate with kids in a way that engages them in communicating with you.

Isn't it interesting that expressing thoughts through language helps remediate the damage done by a culture built on amusement? The ancient Greeks called this kind of linguistic expression "logos." It's the same word used in John 1:1 to describe the ministry of Jesus: "In the beginning was the Word."

Reclaiming the Ancient Art of Life-on-Life Discipleship

Jesus is the model for engaging people in conversation while doing real things. One scholar estimates that Jesus spent 13 months of his three year ministry just walking from place to place. All the while, he engaged others in conversation: Paul Stanley says that Jesus asked 288 questions in the gospels.

"Come, follow me," Jesus said. They did. And along the way he equipped them to change the world, and they did that, too.
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*See Leonard Sax, Boys Adrift. New York: Basic Book, 2007,p.91.
**This phrase is drawn from Neil Postman's book, Amusing Ourselves to Death. I strongly recommend that you read it.