 Hello everybody, Andrea Mayesty here with Dental Health Tutoring. Now, people often ask me what I do for self-care. Now, I have been very, very lucky though. I've been working now for 13 or 14 years and I haven't had any major issues where I know hygienists that have been working two years and are getting back pain, hip pain, wrist pain, anything, right? You will often hear that being a hygienist is hard. It's hard on your body. I think, I think that it really depends on how you work, how much you work, and it depends on a number of things. Again, I've been working for 13, 14 years. I haven't had any major issues, knock on wood. Having that said though, I did sign up for disability insurance about four years ago because I'm a firm believer on spending the extra money to get insurance in case something happens. But the plan that I did sign up for is if I don't claim any insurance, so again, knock on wood if I don't have any issues and I don't use my disability insurance. When I turn 65, I get half of the money back that I paid. I'll have to double check those numbers, the figures because this was four years ago and the advisor that I signed up with isn't very helpful to be honest. I call. I leave messages. They don't follow up with me, so I really need to look into that just to double check to make sure that there's no, you know, confusion, but that's why I signed up for it in the first place. The thing about disability insurance is that there's many different plans. There's many different policies. So look into it. I hired a advisor to look into different insurance plans for me. So he came up with three different ones that I would pick the best one that works for me. Some were, you know, cheaper in the middle, more expensive, but all of the plans are different. But I also own my own tutoring business, as you guys know. So if I was ever hurt or injured where I couldn't work, I wanted to still be able to claim my disability insurance, but still be able to tutor. So there's different plans where if, let's say you get injured at work and can't work as a dental hygienist, I could still work and do something else. So tutoring online, you know, teaching. But there are other plans that if you don't pay as much for your disability insurance, if you have to claim that, it means you can't work. Which, for a lot of people, sounds awesome, right? But I wanted to be able to have that backup to still be allowed to tutor and make money tutoring. Because if I signed up for that plan where I would get disability insurance, you know, get that paid out to me if I couldn't work as a dental hygienist and I still tutored and made money, I would not be able to take my disability insurance, you know, money from that. So why am I paying into something that I wouldn't be able to claim anyway if I needed it? So, but I'm not an advisor in any way. So I can't help you pick the plan that's best for you. But the best advice that I can give you is to hire an advisor because they look in to different insurance companies for you, for your needs. OK, so this video isn't about disability insurance, but that's just kind of the first thing that I thought about because that's what I did first thing when I became a dental hygienist because you never know what can happen. And look at it this way, look at it on the bright side. If you don't use your disability insurance, yes, you paid for it, but that's a good thing. It means you're not injured. It means you're not disabled. So that's a good thing, right? Like a lot of people say to me, well, I don't want to pay for insurance because if I don't use it, it's a waste of money. Well, yes, you're paying into it, but you're not injured. That's a great thing, right? Right. But if you need it, it's there. So please look into it. So that's what I did first. But I do also get a massage once a month. That really, really helps me. And again, I haven't had issues for 14 years, so it must be doing something, right? I've been getting massages not since day one. I wish I had, but I'd say the past three years. We lost our insurance benefits because I used to work full time and my husband used to work full time, but we both don't. We work from home now for the most part, so we don't have a really great insurance plan. So admittedly, it's been a couple of months since I've had a massage where I'm going to book one today because I want one. And I might not go every month now. I might go every other month because I'm covered for the most part every other month, but not every month. So it's just me to save some money. But if I notice me being more sore, then I will spend the money to go every month because it's worth it. I pay about $90 an hour for my massages. Places, every place is a little bit different. So look into that. I paid $80 before, but where I live now, it just seems to be $90 everywhere for one full hour. I like the hour because half an hour, I feel wouldn't really do much, but I could be wrong, but that just really helps me. And a chiropractor, I started seeing a chiropractor about three months ago, or sorry, two months ago now, only because my massage therapist said, oh, you're really tight in these certain areas. You're not normally, so you should see a chiropractor because there's only so deep that a massage therapist is allowed to go, right? Like we're not allowed to do a lot of things, right? As a dental hygienist. We're not allowed to dive in those X-rays. We're not allowed to fix cavities, right? We know it needs to be done, but they need to see a dentist. So my massage therapist said, you need to see a chiropractor. I never thought about it before. I didn't want to because the whole cracking thing I didn't like, but I was kind of in pain actually, but not from being a dental hygienist. We were organizing our house and moving a lot of heavy boxes. And I think I just pulled something the wrong way where I would breathe in and my ribs would hurt, okay? So it was kind of weird. So she said that I needed a thoracic adjustment. I went to the chiropractor. Yes, there's a couple cracks here and there, but he did say to me, he said, you know, the cracking doesn't mean it's working. You might hear that, but it doesn't mean anything. It doesn't mean you have to hear the crack for it to work. You might hear a lot of cracks one appointment. You might not hear any the next. Just everybody is different. So it did kind of, oh my God, like that was a crack. You know, not scare me. That's not the right word, but I was kind of apprehensive about it, but it works, you guys. I can't explain it, but I just feel so much more, I don't know, like looser if that makes sense. Like I can bend over a certain way and not have it hurt me, which I didn't think was an issue before, but now that I know what I can do now after seeing a chiropractor, I just feel better after work, not as tired, not, I mean, I was never sore, but I was tired, like exhausted. After an eight hour a day, I'd be like, oh, I have to sit down, you know, I'm so tired, not sore, but just kind of tired, right? So I see a chiropractor every two weeks. It was once a week when I needed that thoracic adjustment because it did take a couple of sessions, but now it's every two weeks and that works for me. Same thing, no, it's expensive, you guys. We pay about, because my husband sees one too, about $50 per visit and it's only about 15 minutes. I know, crazy, right? We're in the wrong profession. We should have been a chiropractor, but it really helps. And we have insurance now, but we didn't the past couple of months, but we did pay that. I needed to see one every week. We did pay that because it made me feel so much better and I'm doing it for me so that I can live a longer, healthier life and that you guys can have a longer, healthier career as a dental hygienist. Another thing is too, is that, what can I say? Another thing is too, that I don't work full time. Those hygienists that work full time for 20 years hardly get a lunch break, you know, things like that. It's more taxing on your body. I think because I'm not in pain or sore and still love to work is because I work part time. I did work full time for, I'd say 10 years, let me think now. Yeah, I'd say about 10 years actually. Wow, it seems like a long time, but it didn't seem like a long time at the time. I worked full time for about 10 years and then I worked four days a week for a couple years. Three days a week seems to be the norm now. So I work two to three days a week now. Five hour days, six hour days tops and it's amazing. Now to work an eight hour shift, I'm exhausted. Seriously, I don't know if it's my age. I'm not old, but I'm exhausted. I can't do it. If you're young, you're excited, heck, work full time, work eight hours because now's the time to do it. When you get in your 30s, you won't want to. So do it now, you guys, honestly. But also get loops. I have loops with a light. I talk about all of the loops that I have tried in another video, so be sure to do a search for that. Loops with a light makes a big difference. Sit up straight, okay? Sit up straight. We all do it where we have to look quad two lingual, you know, even I still do that, but I'm conscious of it and I go, okay, I can't be doing this, the whole quad two lingual here. So let me get that one spot that I'm having a hard time with and then get back up again and then use indirect vision. Use proper ergonomics. I can't stress that enough because the thing about my chiropractor, he always says, make sure to keep moving. That's the best thing you could possibly do. If you run for, you know, or say, if you walk for three hours, that's going to hurt you, I don't recommend it. But if you take, you know, 20 minutes every day to go for a good walk, every hour, just get up, you know, move a little bit, you know, stretch a little bit, walk down the hall, you're constantly moving because he says, he says, you're internal hygienists. You can't just get up and leave in the middle of cleaning somebody's teeth, right? They're our appointments. That's fine. But just make sure to get up after that and move. I do the same thing at home. When I'm teaching, usually in a sessions an hour, if I'm doing a video like this, I'll typically do three in a row and then get up and move. So I'll put the dishes away. I will unload the dishwasher. I'll put in a load of laundry. I'll let the dogs outside, whatever it is, get up and move, that really helps. Yeah, that's literally just my self-care. Nothing exciting, nothing special, but that's what I do and I haven't had any issues. If I forgot to mention something though, you guys, please let me know. And thank you so much for watching. Please make sure to hit subscribe because it's nice to see how many people are watching me. I don't know. And make sure to comment if you have any questions. I do try to check the comments now once a week because I haven't getting a lot, which is awesome. But I can't check them every day now because I'm getting pretty busy with my tutoring and with other things, but I like to check the comments every week and I do answer all of them. So please feel free to comment. The good, the bad, whatever. I mean, if it's really mean, I'm going to take your comment off because that's just not necessary. Like I've had some weird comments lately over I'm thinking. I'm pretty sure you're not in the dental industry. Why are you commenting on my videos? So I will take those out, okay? If you're mean, if you're rude, I'm going to take them out seriously. But if you don't like something, let me know. That's okay. I like to hear feedback. But yeah, let me know please. I look forward to reading the comments and let me know if I missed anything. Thank you guys for watching and have a good afternoon.