Smile-Friendly Movie Snacks for Summer

With summer approaching, it’s prime season to settle into a cozy seat at the movies and enjoy one of the season’s many blockbuster movies.

Of course, a true movie experience wouldn’t be complete without some classic movie snacks. However, as you well know, when you have braces, you have to make some compromises on what you eat. Don’t worry though -- there are a bunch of snacks you can get at the movies that are completely compatible with your braces.

Hot dogs and pizzaMost movie theaters sell these snacks, which are a better to eat than sticky gummies and Milk Duds that will get stuck in between your brackets and arch wires. 

Soft pretzelsYou should try to stick to soft foods, and soft pretzels are a good snack to eat. Try it with cinnamon or salted with cheese. 

Ice cream and frozen yogurtIce cream and yogurt bars with varieties of toppings are becoming popular in theaters. Milkshakes also are safe to eat and a tasty, cool summer treat. 

Soft, fresh-baked cookiesSome movie theaters sell fresh-baked cookies. Chocolate chip cookies should be a safe option for moviegoers. 

Chocolate candyTry to stay away from candy bars with nuts and caramel, but there are plenty of options to choose from including Hershey’s bars, M&Ms, Reese’s Pieces and Kit Kat bars. 

Sodas and slushiesThese sugary drinks aren’t good for your teeth, but they won’t damage your brackets and wires. Just make sure you brush your teeth after the movie to make sure there isn’t any sugary residue left on your teeth. If you can sip water between swigs of the sugary drinks, that can help wash the Gummy candiessugars off your teeth.
Some snacks to stay away from are popcorn, gummy worms, bubble gum, nachos, and candy bars with caramel. These snacks can be your worst enemy at the movie theater because you will be left picking at your braces instead of enjoying the movie. If you do decide to eat these risky treats, make sure to bring a toothbrush, floss and a Proxabrush to go between braces and teeth to remove food and plaque.

Looking for an excuse to sport a great smile this summer? Talk to Reed Orthodontics about your options for a straighter smile!

April is National Stress Awareness Month

Sponsored by The Health Resource Network (HRN), a non-profit health education organization, Stress Awareness Month is a national effort to inform people about the dangers of stress, successful coping strategies, and harmful misconceptions about stress that are prevalent in our society.During April, health care professionals across the country will join forces to increase public awareness about both the causes and cures for our modern stress epidemic.As an orthodontist, we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention the mental health benefits of smiling. In fact, a study from the University of Kansas department of psychology suggest that smiling can reduce stress and make us feel better:

“Age old adages, such as ‘grin and bear it,’ have suggested smiling to be not only an important nonverbal indicator of happiness but also wishfully promotes smiling as a panacea for life’s stressful events,” said researcher Tara Kraft. “We wanted to examine whether these adages had scientific merit; whether smiling could have real health-relevant benefits.”

To investigate the claim, the researchers recruited 169 willing college students for a hands-on experiment. But they had to engage in a bit of deception. Actually telling the participants that they were testing whether smiling would make them happier would have distorted the results, so the students were told that the experiment was about multi-tasking.

Next, the students were put in “multi-tasking situations” that were intentionally designed to be stressful. In the first one, they were asked to trace a star shape with their non-dominant hand while looking only at a mirror image of it, and were misled about the average person’s accuracy in completing the task. While attempting to execute the maneuver with as few errors as possible to win a reward (a chocolate), they were continually reminded to hold the chopsticks in their mouths to maintain the intended facial expression. Afterward, they were instructed to do the same as their hands were submerged in ice water.

The experiment’s findings were startling. As a whole, the smilers had lower heart rates while recovering from the stressful tasks than those who had assumed neutral expressions, and those with Duchenne smiles had lower heart rates yet. Even those who were smiling only due to their instructed chopstick position—without explicitly being told to smile—showed the same effect. Since heart rate is an indicator of the body’s stress response, it seems as though the act of smiling actually reduced the participants’ overall stress level.

Click here to jumpstart your smile and contact Reed Orthodontics today!