What do good health and dandelions have in common? Well, nothing really, and yet…everything. Every summer when I tackle the task of pulling weeds in my flower beds, I swear to myself that next year will be different. I will figure out how to get rid of those pesky weeds, permanently, without damaging the beautiful flowers and trees that grow alongside them. A woman can hope, huh? I shovel and hoe and pull and rake, quickly of course, as time is a precious commodity, and pulling weeds doesn’t ever make the list of my favorite pastimes. Much to my dismay, several weeks later, like clockwork, there they are again, multiplying like telemarketers at dinnertime, with an underground network of roots quite possibly extending all the way to China! Eventually, I surrender to their presence. “Well, at least they have pretty yellow flowers,” I reason, too tired to care anymore.

Sound familiar? If it doesn’t, it should. Our fast-paced society has a pill for all the quickly spreading “dandelions” of poor health: blood pressure, depression, anxiety, ADHD, pain, sleep, and the list goes on and on. “Quick-Fix” is our motto, and “Movin’ On” is our slogan. Consider me guilty as charged. I’ve relegated many unwelcome symptoms to the backseat, medicating them to quiet their disruption, while I continued to drive in the fast lane called “Life.” When they tried to get my attention, like a child in the midst of a run-on sentence, I would tell them, “Quiet, please. Mommy has things to do.” Eventually, those blinding blue and red lights flashed in my rear-view mirror: the laws of nature had finally caught up to me. Disease and illness had finally come to inflict their justice. “You’ve got to get the roots,” I could almost hear my grandma saying, followed by an irritating query from my first grade teacher, “If you don’t have time to do it right the first time, when will you have time to do it over?”

When will you have time to do it over again? Life, that is. The hard truth is that the symptoms of disease and illness are a lot like dandelions. They appear out of seemingly nowhere, and our response is often just to “hack off the leaves” of our symptoms with medications. Got reflux? Take antacids. Got sleep issues? Take a sleeping pill. Got headaches? Take a pain reliever. Got ADHD? Take a stimulant. You get the point. We have places to go and people to see, and we haven’t got time for the pain. Meanwhile, the root of all these symptoms is wreaking havoc on our bodies, and we are paying a steep price, both in medical costs and in the wear and tear on our bodies! According to www.sleepapnea.org, an estimated 38,000 people die annually from heart disease related to obstructive sleep apnea. Yes, I said die, as sleep apnea can lead to high blood pressure, heart failure and stroke. Many more suffer from headaches, irritability, fatigue, inattention, gastrointestinal issues, clenching and grinding of the teeth and depression. In children, bed-wetting, sleep walking, night terrors and ADHD are added to the list of potential sleep apnea symptoms. Sleep apnea is a serious, but treatable illness, and help is available.

As a myofunctional therapist, my mission is to help my clients get to the root of many common health and dental issues, including mouth breathing, obstructive sleep apnea, snoring, relapsed orthodontics, tongue thrusts, jaw pain and speech problems and treat the underlying problem instead of the symptoms that eventually rear their ugly little head. Call it basic training for your face, if you will, strengthening and retraining the muscles of the tongue, lips, cheeks and throat to achieve the end goal of helping you master four basic habits: nasal breathing, lips closed, tongue resting on the roof of your mouth and normal swallowing function. You’d be surprised how many things get out of whack when those four basic habits aren’t happening! Take my free myofunctional assessment for adults and children on my website, www.myownhealthidaho.com to help you determine if myofunctional therapy can benefit you. I offer a FREE 30-minute consultation to answer any questions you may have. Check it out…maybe my grandma and my first-grade teacher were on to something!