Ye Olde Washboarde

Do you remember the old way to wash clothes?  Having washed my clothes by hand in Argentina, I know how tedious it can be if you really want to get the clothes clean.  What a luxury to have a machine that cleans our clothes for us!  Oddly enough, it's seems amazing that now all we have to do is throw our clothes in a machine that stirs the water for around 45 minutes, and we get the same result as an old washboard, but perhaps it's easier on the clothes.
What does this have to do with dentistry?  Well, in the same way a washboard is tedious and rough on clothes, brushing our teeth hard is rough on our mouth.  In fact, our mouth gets cleaner when we brush lightly for longer time, doing the same thing as a washing machine:  agitating as much as we can softly, over a couple of minutes, cleans our teeth better.  This is especially true with electric toothbrushes.  We should just agitate lightly for at least two minutes and follow up with flossing or something to clean between our teeth.  So next time you catch yourself brushing hard, remember the washboard!