I’m sure like a lot of you, I’ve always reached for a stick of gum after drinking
a cup of coffee or eating some onion-heavy dish.
I always liked gum, but I never thought I’d end up chewing it every single day for a month!
It all started when I came across this article about all the health benefits of chewing gum.
It can help you lose weight and burn more calories?
Good, I’d been stacking on some extra pounds recently.
It protects your teeth?
Uh, really?
I always thought it gave you cavities, so I guess we’ll see!
It can improve your memory?
Awesome, because I've been slowly turning into Dory from Finding Nemo more and more
every day!
I figured one pack of gum a day would be more than enough, and my weird experiment began…
The first three days were fun.
If I wasn’t eating or sleeping, then I was chomping down on a piece of gum.
I gotta say, my jaw didn't take this challenge well at first – on day 4 it started aching
a little from all that extra chewing.
But the next day, everything went back to normal.
The next few days went smoothly too – the only thing that bothered me was thirst.
I guess all that sugar and artificial sweeteners was getting to me.
But it wasn't that bad either – I finally started drinking 8 glasses of water or so
a day, and I’m sure my doctor would be proud!
During the next 10 days, chewing gum became second nature to me.
I didn't even think twice about it, and any resistance in my jaw had gone away completely.
But now I had to deal with another thing – bloating.
After a little research, I found out that it's the artificial sweeteners to blame.
Apparently, they have trouble getting absorbed in the small intestines.
Plus, when you chew your favorite gum, you swallow tons of air too.
Thankfully, after two or three days, the bloating went away.
On the bright side of things, I started to notice my weight slowly going down.
Well, when you're constantly chewing gum, you have no time for unhealthy snacks, right?
Plus, you really don't even crave them anymore, so it was pretty easy to avoid the junk food.
Finally, the last 10 days of my experiment approached.
You know how a piece of gum feels a bit hard in your mouth at first when you chew it?
My jaw got so used to it that I didn't feel that at all!
But to be honest, by this point I was pretty sick of gum.
It stopped being fun and became a monotonous thing I had to do.
Other than that, I felt completely fine, though.
The greatest shock to me was the compliments I started getting toward the end of my experiment
regarding my jawline.
I mean, that was never one of my strong features, but now it is!
I looked at pictures of myself before and after the experiment, and I could see the
change!
My jawline got way stronger and more defined in just a month.
I'm not gonna lie, this made me think twice about stopping the experiment, but I decided
enough was enough for now!
I guess you're waiting for me to give you my final conclusions.
Let me think...
I’ll start with the good stuff: • Of course, there’s the chiseled jawline
thing.
I like the way mine looks now!
Frequent chewing gives a great workout to the jaw muscles and boom – you look like
Henry Cavill!
Ok, well, maybe not exactly…
• The weight loss was a welcomed gift.
It wasn’t anything too dramatic but still enough to feel more comfortable in my body.
Chewing gum basically tricks your brain into thinking that you're actually eating, so you
don't feel hungry that often.
And with almost zero snacking, I started feeling better too!
• Remember how I told you that chewing gum can improve your memory?
It supposedly stimulates brain activity, and I really think there's some truth to that!
I found myself more focused at work and a lot less dependent on lists to remind me what
I need to get done.
• I also noticed that my stress levels went down.
I'm a big worrier, so I was really surprised when I looked back and realized that I was
a lot more chill during the month.
I guess that chewing motion calms the nerves and releases stress.
Good lifehack!
• And, obviously, always having fresh breath was a big plus!
I didn’t chew mint gum the whole time, but even the fruity flavors gave my mouth a pleasant
scent!
Kind of a weird observation, but that’s the whole point of gum anyway, right?
But it's not all sunshine and rainbows – there were some downsides too:
• The bloating.
Yes, it went away pretty fast, but it is something to take into consideration if you wanna start
chewing more gum.
• The thirst.
It went away a little bit when I changed my watermelon and strawberry gums to mint ones,
but I still drank a lot more water than I normally do.
I guess you can decide whether that’s a good or bad thing.
• And last but not least were the headaches.
I had a couple major ones hit me during the experiment, and I know it had to be because
of all that chewing since I never really used to get bad headaches.
And I saw an article online linking the two, so chances are that was the reason.
But those are just the things I personally noticed.
There’s also tons of research out there saying that chewing stimulates the flow of
saliva, which basically flushes away all the acids produced by bacteria.
This makes your teeth stronger and prevents tooth decay.
Some gums also contain this thing called CPP-ACP.
It can harden your enamel and provide extra protection for your teeth.
Plus, there are plenty of dentist-approved gums out there!
Still, you should be careful if you wanna try this challenge yourself.
As I was surfing the Internet and doing all my homework, I found that one woman from Liverpool
had to have a jaw operation after chewing gum for about 7 hours a day.
Apparently, her jaw muscles got worn out, and she couldn't even open her mouth more
than an inch (2.5 cm)!
Okay but how much gum should you chew a day, then?
Doctors say you shouldn't do it if you don't have a good enough reason for it.
The best time is after meals.
Again, it’s all got to do with that teeth-cleaning and digestion-boosting saliva production that
gets bumped up.
And don't forget that you have to choose sugar-free gums to get all these benefits.
As for me, I chew gum only about 3 times a day now – after breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
And, of course, it’s still nice after a cup of coffee too.
My appetite is better than ever, that Hollywood jawline is still kicking around, and I’m
glad I did this experiment!
What's the most exciting experiment you've ever conducted?
Let me know down in the comments!
Don't forget to give this video a “like,” share it with your friends, and click “subscribe”
to stay on the Bright Side of life!