Mental Floss

Mental Floss

It came to me as I was flossing my teeth this morning.  Yes, I floss my teeth every morning.  It's one of those healthy things that I kept doing long enough that it became a habit.   If I fail to do it, it haunts me the rest of the day, really.  This can be awkward at certain times as I have good-sized hands and a smallish mouth (this is the  physical quality of space within the cheeks and behind the lips, so to speak, not what some might perceive as a too large quantity of words that emanate therefrom).  But back to the observation that came along.  I had my hands halfway in my mouth and some floss pulled down between the last couple of molars back there, and I could not get my hands to move the floss any way at all.  I stood there a moment then managed to move my hands out of my mouth and started over at the other end of my mouth.  Everything worked fine after that, not so remarkable, but it set me to thinking, probably somewhat earlier than I should have.

One of the opportunities I have been afforded in this life (thank you, Kaitlen--things the old Jim might characterize as weaknesses and/or defects are really just opportunities) is dealing with the disruption of the messaging system between my brain and my muscles.  As it's been described to me, nerves are just telegraph lines (Oh, come on Jim--this is the 21st century, call them fiber optic cables for the analogy, for heaven's sake!)....  OK, the nerves are just a sort of network of fiber optic cables that carry messages from the brain to the muscles, mostly without conscious thought.   You might decide to get out of bed, for example, and once your brain has received that message, the part of the brain that governs unconscious movement sends hundreds, maybe thousands of signals to get your hand to grasp the sheet and or blanket, to begin pulling it off your upper body, telling each of your legs to slide up toward your upper body, and your toes to search for the open space to escape from the covers, telling your hips to turn in the direction of the open side of the bed, telling your hands to help raise your head and shoulder off the mattress, while telling your legs to move still further to find the edge of the mattress, and pushing your trunk upright, then executing a swivel in the direction of that open side of the bed, then dropping one leg at a time down off the edge of the bed, while trying to sense the approaching floor so they don't just crash to the floor, and so on and so on....  Each of those movements required hundreds of messages to be sent from the brain to the muscles and from the muscle to the brain.  Probably the only thought you had was, "I've got to get up."  Your brain unconsciously does the rest.

Well, the chemicals that carry these messages have to come from somewhere, don't they?  So, your brain has a place that manufactures those chemicals (in this case, dopamine).  Mine slowed way down, and only provides a trickle of them around for my brain to use.  At the same time, there has to be a receptor in each of your muscles to receive and translate those messages into making the muscles move.  These receptors have to work harder to sense that trickle of dopamine (sort of like straining to hear something, I'd guess).  As a result, the receptors wear out prematurely.  They can be replaced, but your brain and nervous system only create new ones when demand is created by vigorous activity.   Hence, it is important for people like me to exercise vigorously on a daily basis and vary the kinds of activity we engage in so that new receptors are activated and fresh, new connections are made.  If you run into something that won't move when you want it to, you try doing it slightly differently or more consciously, since the conscious movements are controlled by another part of the brain.  (Whew! That part's over.  I don't think my neurologist would grant me this much poetic license to describe this condition, but what she doesn't know won't hurt her in this case).

In any event, it occurred to me that our citizenry ( or society, country, species, life form--whatever collective term you might choose to apply), might just benefit from a similar approach.  If one approach doesn't convey the message the way we intended it, try another way.  Don't just repeat the same slogan until it becomes meaningless (what does the mantra, "no new taxes" mean anyway?  No new ones at all, or just increases in licensing fees instead?  And do we really want "universal health care" whatever the cost?)  Secondly, why not have each part of the body politic try some vigorous exercise, as in thoughtful debate on a regular basis, instead of repeatedly sending the same slogans to the worn out ears (receptors) of the rest of us.  Maybe all that activity could cause some new receptors to activate and get some things moving.  OK, it was before I had my morning coffee, but there it is.