Something You Should Know - How to Use the Element of Surprise to Be Successful & The Secret to Stopping Bad Breath Forever

Episode Date: July 9, 2018

Do you blush? Most people who do blush wish they didn’t because it is embarrassing and – as blushers know – it is impossible to stop doing it. But blushing has a purpose and I begin this episode by discussing who blushes, why they blush and what it means to others when you do. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=why-we-blush-social-embarrassment I’m sure you know that feeling of delight when someone surprises you on your birthday or anniversary or surprised you for no particular reason at all. When you understand how you can create that feeling of delight in others, those people will go out of their way to help you in all sorts of ways. Andy Nulman author of the book Pow! Right between the Eyes! Profiting from the Element of Surprise (https://amzn.to/2J5IwN5) joins me to discuss the power of surprise.  Finding true love isn’t always easy – especially the second or third time around. One of the tricks is knowing where to look. So I will tell you the top 3 ways people find the next love of their life. Not just where people meet to find someone to date – but where they find real love. https://amzn.to/2uenFBW Everyone worries about their breath sometimes. Bad breath is sometimes hard to get rid of – and that is partly because people don’t understand where it comes. Dr. Harold Katz, DDS, is the founder of the California Breath Clinics and author of the book The Bad Breath Bible https://www.therabreath.com/ebook/ and he joins me to clear up some myths about bad breath and how to conquer it once and for all.  Advertisers in this episode: Bombas Socks. Get 20% off your first sock order from Bombas! Go to www.bombas.com/something and enter the word – something – in the promo code space. Hims. If you are concerned about hair loss get a trial month of prescription treatment for just $5. Go to www.ForHims.com/something.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today on Something You Should Know, do you blush like me when you get embarrassed? I'll tell you why. And by the way, it's perfectly normal. Also, understanding surprise. When you surprise someone, you can make magical things happen. When I look back on the definition that I said, what is surprise? I always wrote that it was the constant expansion of the boundaries of delightful extremes. I think the word delightful is operative.

Plus, where is the best place to find real love? Actually, I'll tell you three places. And lots of people have bad breath. You'll discover how to make sure you're not one of them. The number one thing besides keeping your mouth moist is keeping your mouth clean. We recommend to brush your tongue during the day. Your tongue is more or less like those shag carpets from the 70s

where the bacteria are hiding deep down inside there. All this today on Something You Should Know. As a listener to Something You Should Know, I can only assume that you are someone who likes to learn about new and interesting things and bring more knowledge to work for you in your everyday life. I mean, that's kind of what Something You Should Know was all about. And so I want to invite you to listen to another podcast called TED Talks Daily. Now, you know about TED Talks, right? Many of the guests on Something You Should Know have done TED Talks. Well, you see, TED Talks Daily is a podcast that brings you a new TED Talk

every weekday in less than 15 minutes. Join host Elise Hu. She goes beyond the headlines so you can hear about the big ideas shaping our future. Learn about things like sustainable fashion, embracing your entrepreneurial spirit, the future of robotics, and so much more. Like I said, if you like this podcast, Something You Should Know, I'm pretty sure you're going to like TED Talks Daily. And you get TED Talks Daily wherever you get your podcasts.

Something You Should Know. Fascinating intel. The world's top experts and practical advice you can use in your life. Today, Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers. You know, over the last several months as we've developed this terrific repertoire of advertisers on this podcast. More and more I'm getting emails from people saying, you know, I heard this commercial on your podcast, I was driving, or I couldn't write it down, or I don't remember the website, or what the promo code was. And by the way, if that ever happens to you, you can always email me and I will respond right away and give you those links that you need. But in order to alleviate you having to do that, we're going

to start listing the advertisers and their links and make those links work in our show notes so you can just go to those show notes and find exactly what you're looking for. First up today, blushing. I've been blushing my whole life. You know, whenever the teacher called on me and I didn't know the answer, you know, my face would called on me and I didn't know the answer, you know, my face would turn bright red. I'm just one of those people who blushes. Darwin called blushing the most peculiar and most human of all expressions. Why do we blush?

Well, it appears that it does serve a purpose by conveying to others a genuine remorse, regret, or embarrassment. It works in much the same way as crying when you're remorseful about something you did. It shows appeasement and allows other people to forgive you more easily. Blushing also tends to be an uncomfortable experience for the blusher. No foolin'. So it tends to be a deterrent to repeating the behavior in the future. Blushing is involuntary and uncontrollable, according to a study in the journal Emotion. In fact, I've heard that if you blush and you're aware of your blushing and you try to stop blushing, you actually blush more. And interestingly, people of all colors and ethnicities blush.

It's just that Caucasians are the easiest ones to spot. And that is something you should know. When you take the time to stop and think about it, you know how much you like it when people surprise you for your birthday or just out of the blue or just because. It's a great feeling knowing that someone took the time to do something unusual for you. Well, everyone feels that way. Humans love surprises. We love and take notice when people do something extra or different. It evokes that feeling of delight. Well, knowing that, think of how you could delight other people with even just a small surprise now and again. It's something that has intrigued Andy Nolman. Andy is a speaker and entrepreneur, and he's author of the book

POW! Right Between the Eyes, Profiting from the Element of surprise. Hi, Andy. I know we talked some years back for the old radio show, and it's great to have you on the podcast. Thank you, Mike. I'm so happy to be back. It's been a while. So, as I said, you know, when people stop and think about it, of course we like surprises. Of course we notice when people do something different that surprise has a very nice, surprising effect on us. But we don't talk about it much or think about it much beyond, you know, birthdays and anniversaries and whatnot. But talk about why this is important.

Well, I think it's so important because these days, so many people have seen so much. Social media has brought everything to us. We can get anything we want at a moment's notice. You can get anything delivered to you, and sometimes even by drone. So basically, with so much being so commonplace these days, the way to cut through that clutter is to surprise people. And it's funny, you know, I wrote the book you mentioned nine years ago, and I think more and more it becomes even more relevant, more important these days.

So why do you think that people are reluctant or don't think about it much, or why don't we surprise others? And I guess if we did surprise people all the time, then it wouldn't be a surprise. I have to tell you that, again, going back nine years when I wrote this, I really thought this was going to be revolutionary.

But what I found is that people are, for most cases, afraid to surprise others, and I myself was surprised at how timid most people were. But also I found people who have been using Surprise have really benefited. And I have so many examples of that. Most recently, Fruit of the Loom did this wonderful campaign of Surprise where they hid money in tiny little doors, and they had these ads that looked like ads for real estate agents. When you read them closely, it gave you a phone number to call,

and then you got all sorts of free goods. So, you know, it just goes to show you that it works, and it works in a big way if you're willing to take the risk and do it. But don't you have to be careful that the surprise is appropriate, that it's not too over-the-top or too weird or too outlandish or too creepy? I mean, it could backfire, right? It could, but I really think the risk is worth it. And I've seen this time and time again.

When I look back on the definition that I said, what is surprise? I always wrote that it was the constant expansion of the boundaries of delightful extremes. I think to your point, the word delightful is operative because you can be as extreme as you want. I mean, I can go in somewhere swearing with a baseball bat, breaking things, but that would be incredibly surprising but not very delightful. I think that what you want to do is have people talk about things and, more importantly, share them. Now, just let me jump in here with this. The world has changed immensely in the nine years span from the release of the book to our conversation today. And because things like Instagram, we'll just use Instagram as the perfect example.

We can use Facebook, Twitter, and all that. But because the world has become so visual, people want to go ahead and share things. And the problem these days is that so much is common. How many times are you going to take a picture of a taco and share it? So people want this delight. They want this delightful extreme. And the goal and the win is when people like it so much that they actually share it and tell others about it. Yeah, well, and that's the goal, right? That you delight somebody so much that they have to tell somebody else that then you've

hit a home run. But, you know, a double isn't bad, nor is a triple. But so many things today are singles or strikeouts. So a triple is pretty good. Well, I think when people think of a surprise, they think of something big and flashy. But really, a surprise can be a very small gesture. I mean, when was the last time anybody sent you a handwritten thank-you note? So imagine if you sent one to somebody after they did something for you. That would be a nice surprise.

One of the things I've always said about one of the main tenets of this is little things mean a lot. It doesn't have to be massive. It just has to be a little bit different from what people expect. And it's such a simple process, yet, you know, so few people actually take it. It really is, you know, it's the tenet of a joke. Basically, when you look at what is a joke,

my history is in humor. My background is in the business of comedy. And a joke really is you're going down a path. You think you're going somewhere, but at one pivotal key moment, you're taken down another path. And that's where that's the punchline. Oh, I expected to go, you know, right, and you took me left. And that's basically the same thing with any type of surprise. It's what people expect X, just deliver them Y.

And maybe some examples just from your experience of observing this and perhaps doing this of just a wet people's appetite of the kinds of things you're talking about. I'll just give you a personal example. I've done a lot of speaking, and people say, please speak to our audiences about creativity, conductive disruption. And then they say to me in the next breath, oh, by the way, send us your PowerPoint, your slides. And so what I do is I actually, what I put together is a speech where you go ahead and it starts off with, here are the four steps to be creative and five steps to disrupt.

And people will sit there and take notes and think that they're getting it. At one point I said, guys, do you really think you're going to learn about creativity from a gray PowerPoint with four points? Do you really think you're going to learn about disruption from a PowerPoint slide? Of course, this is how you learn about disruption. At that point in time, I usually take my laptop and slam it to the ground and stomp on it. And that, believe me, surprises and shocks an audience. And then every word I say from that point on

is taken as gospel because these people are so shocked and they expected this standard speech about, is taken as gospel because these people are so shocked into, they expected this standard speech about, okay, here are the four or five steps. That's not the way you learn. If you want to talk about disruption, you have to disrupt. And that's basically what I do. But you know what happens again?

The next time I'll go back and they'll say, are you going to break the computer again? Are you going to smash the computer again? And I'll say, of course not, because people are going to expect me smashing the computer. And that's the one thing about surprise, is once you pull one off, once you do it, the tendency is, well, let's just do it again. But that never works because of the fact that it's like lighting a firecracker. You never get the same bang the second time. Once the explosion happens,

it happens. You don't go back to that burnt- out shell and try to relight it for another explosion. Right. Well, which brings up the point of, you know, you have to, you can't keep surprising people, the same people over and over again, because then it's not a surprise, then they expect it, and then you've lost all the power. I just last night spoke to, I'm doing a speech in Melbourne, Australia, and what they asked me, and again, because of the fact that, I guess I have this reputation of doing these things differently, they said what you really have to come here and do is completely knock these people on their butts. And what I thought was going to be, I wouldn't say a rehash, but a rekindling of something I'd already done,

these guys pushed me and said, no, no, we want something brand new, which, again, to the surprise element, I'm saying, okay, great, because no matter what what people will go ahead and look and see speeches on on YouTube and all the other things that I've done in the past but they will expect X but I have but these people said no no you have to deliver that Y and that's the challenge the challenge for me the challenge for any business the challenge for an advertiser a marketer someone looking for a job, the example you gave before, is to continually look for the next level, continually to go and say, okay, what can I do now that's not the same, and that takes me and the people I'm trying to reach out of the comfort zone. And it's not easy,

and it's often, you know, very, very risky. But the rewards, I always say, are worth it versus, you know, just being one of the crowd. I'm speaking with Andy Nolman. He is author of the book POW! Right Between the Eyes, Profiting from the Element of Surprise. So you have socks and I have socks, but the question is, do you have Bombas socks? I do. In fact, I'm wearing Bombas socks right now as we speak. And they are different. These are not your typical department store socks. They went through a two-year research and development process

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something in the checkout code space. That's bombas.com slash something. And enter the offer code something in the checkout code space. That's bombas.com slash something. And that link is also in the show notes. Since I host a podcast, it's pretty common for me to be asked to recommend a podcast. And I tell people, if you like something you should know, you're going to like The Jordan Harbinger Show. Every episode is a conversation with a fascinating guest. Of course, a lot of podcasts are conversations with guests, but Jordan does it better than most. Recently, he had a fascinating conversation with a British

woman who was recruited and radicalized by ISIS and went to prison for three years. She now works to raise awareness on this issue. It's a great conversation. And he spoke with Dr. Sarah Hill about how taking birth control not only prevents pregnancy, it can influence a woman's partner preferences, career choices, and overall behavior due to the hormonal changes it causes. Apple named the Jordan Harbinger Show one of the best podcasts a few years back, and in a nutshell, the show is aimed at making you a better, more informed critical

thinker. Check out The Jordan Harbinger Show. There's so much for you in this podcast. The Jordan Harbinger Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. that ours is not a loving God, and we are not its favored children. The Heresies of Randolph Bantwine, wherever podcasts are available. So, Andy, in some ways, this discussion about surprise is very much a discussion about change. You know, people say they like change, but not too much change, and nobody wants to be the first to change, but change can be so inspiring. Look, I get this all the time, and we talk, people come to me and ask me about change. We want to do something different, we want to do something wild, we want to do something crazy.

Okay, you give them something, here's something shocking, wild, crazy, and they say, well, not that crazy. Okay, you bring it down a bit. Still a little much. Bring it down a bit more. Can you just touch it up? You know, bring it down a bit more. And they say, we like that. They say, well, that's exactly what you're doing now. So you don't want to change. And they say, well, we like change.

We just want other people to change first. I think that that continually challenges to go ahead and to sell it into people who say they want it and say they're going to do it, but in the end don't. Yeah, but the example you gave when we talked several years ago is a good example of, you know, it doesn't take a lot, and you told the story about how you were stuck in line at a bookstore at Christmas time and you were getting frustrated and the bookstore people came out with a tray of chocolates and handed them out to everybody in line, and it changed everything. And it wasn't hard. It wasn't a big deal.

There was no meeting about, is this too much, is this too little? It was a nice gesture that no one expected, and it worked. Yes, but I guarantee you, Mike, there were people sitting there behind the scenes saying, I don't know, should we do this? Maybe people will get offended what if somebody is allergic to chocolate? What if somebody thinks we're bribing them? I know it sounds ridiculous, but that is the corporate notion. It's always, okay, you know, I get this all the time where people will say, let's just run it by legal. And I say, once you run it

by legal, you're screwed. It's over. It's history. It's gone. It will never happen because legal will find it or it will tell you why you should not do it. You'll tell you, you know what, this worked 50 times, do it the 51st. So, yeah, it seems simple, but it's not. It's never simple, because

there will always be somebody to tell you why it cannot be done, why it shouldn't get done. One of my favorite surprise stories of all time implicates, not to his knowledge, President Trump. This is at the CTIA conference, a wireless conference a few years ago,

and we went in. Our company was called Airborne Mobile at the time. We were a small, teeny company, and we spent all sorts of money on promotional material, the T-shirts, the bouncy balls, the bags. People would just get free stuff, and it would cost us a fortune. It wouldn't do anything. So I said, what can we do for a dollar? Which transformed into what can we do with a dollar?

And we actually took 1,000 American dollar bills, stamped them all, because we were doing a game at the time, a mobile game called Donald Trump's Real Estate Tycoon. We were doing it with a company called Activision, and we worked with the Trump Foundation and Trump family to get this done. And we printed on these dollar bills in ink, we printed there's only two ways to beat Donald Trump. One, collect a few billion more of these, or two, play Donald Trump's real estate tycoon.

So what we did is we dropped them one by one on the floor, almost like crumbs, and we saw people going near them, worried whether they should pick them up or not. And we saw the response. And at one point in time, what did is we have a eight hundred left i was speaking on a panel at one point i would mention the game that we threw eight hundred of these uh... in the air and created a complete calamity where people just guilt basically killed each

other to get their hands on because it when they realize dollar bills uh... were real you know the the end of the result of the whole promotion cost of thousand dollars it made all sorts of headlines of course this is uh... you know if you So the end result of the whole promotion cost was $1,000. It made all sorts of headlines. Of course, this is a few years ago. It got us banned from the conference forever, but the point was that it brought us so much business, and for years after, people would always come to me and say,

are you going to throw the dollar bills? And I would say, no, we're looking for something new. But that goes to show you the power of a great surprise element. But you have to take the risk. Otherwise, I could have just made another pen or another T-shirt that would be some landfill at this stage of the game. Right. Well, actually, that's an interesting story because I was going to ask you, well, you know, how do you know where the line is? Because you had talked about, you know, slamming your computer on the floor.

You must go through a lot of laptops, but you slammed your computer on the floor. But, you know, you could have also lit the curtains on fire and vomited on stage, but you didn't. I mean, you stopped at some point. There is a line at which this is not good. A great surprise should do a number of things, but primarily what it should do is make people comfortable and happy in the end. Every joke is a joke with a little bit of tension, and the punchline breaks the tension. Same thing with a great surprise. There is a bit of tension, and when it happens, it's sort of like a post-diction,

instead of a pre-diction, and the post-diction is like, oh, oh, God, now I see it. I should have seen that coming. It all makes sense now, and that's what a great surprise does. But there's a certain delight and a smile element, and, of course, people should want to talk about it, share it, take it take video of it and send it to somebody else you're not gonna believe what happened when you look at anything on Facebook you know the most shared videos are usually things that are extreme and fun and and

you know induce some semblance of goodwill and a warm feeling and surprise yeah but the things you talked about before, of course, lighting the curtains or vomiting, no one's really going to say, well, that was nice, that was fun. Although, you know, let's take a picture of that and share it. It's not going to happen.

So the light is really a key element. I'll give you a perfect example, too, and how simple it was. IHOP, when they changed their name, they said, we're changing International House of Banking from IHOP to IHOB. And the internet lit up. And all they did was basically invert the P into a B. When you think about that, my Lord, how small is that? But think about how grand it is to say what we are doing is changing our company name that's been our identity for decades.

So that's where the guts came in. But look how simple it was. And people talked about it for days. It is interesting what you mentioned, that there is so much sameness, you know, when people in a company get together and talk about, oh, we've got to find ways to promote. It's, you know, print up some more coffee mugs and get some more t-shirts printed. And it's all the same. And there's so much of it that nobody notices anymore. And like you say, you know, it ends up in a landfill. I mean, how many mugs do I have from places I've gone that,

you know, they're in the back of the cupboard and eventually they'll get tossed out. So this is really interesting and kind of a wake-up call that just some element of surprise can change all that. Andy Nolman has been my guest. He is a speaker, an entrepreneur, and the book is POW! Right Between the Eyes, Profiting from the Element of Surprise. And there is a link to his book in the show notes. Thanks, Andy. So let me ask you, does this statistic surprise you? 66% of men lose their hair by age 35. 66%.

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I'm sure there have been times in your life when you've worried about your breath. Everybody gets bad breath sometimes, and for some people it's a bigger problem than for other people, but whenever you get it, it can be very embarrassing and get in the way. Dr. Harold Katz knows a lot about bad breath. He's a UCLA-trained dentist. He is founder of the California Breath Clinics, creator of the TheraBreath line of breath products, and author of the book, The Bad Breath Bible. Welcome, doctor.

So, bad breath is a pretty universal problem in the sense that it's normal for everyone to have it sometimes, and we're often concerned about our own breath because it's hard to tell when we have bad breath. People do become embarrassed about the problem. We sort of laugh about bad breath. We see people depicted in movies and TV having bad breath, and everyone has a good laugh about it. But it's a bigger problem because it's an ongoing problem for many people. They just can't get rid of it. So let's define it. What is it? Where does it come from? Everybody has smelled

bad breath on somebody else. What is it? Well, I'm glad you brought that up because there's still a misconception after all these years, people still think bad breath comes from the digestive system. And that's a fallacy. In the early 90s, research done up in Canada proved that bad breath is caused by what are called anaerobic sulfur-producing bacteria, which live in the back of your tongue, throat, and tonsils. And these bacteria produce chemicals called volatile sulfur compounds. These are very smelly chemicals. Hydrogen sulfide is one of them. That's the rotten egg smell. Another chemical they produce is called cadaverine. Another is called putrescine. So you can imagine what they smell like just by their names. So most of that activity is happening, again, just in the oral cavity and in the throat.

In fact, the test I always give people just to prove it doesn't come from your stomach, after this interview, if you eat a big lunch and then stand on your head, I guarantee your lunch will not fall out of your mouth. There are muscles that line your esophagus that prevent odors from escaping. Unless you're belching all day, you're not going to have any bad breath coming from your stomach. But people often associate bad breath with certain foods. You eat garlic and onions, and that somehow produces bad breath. Well, that's true, and that's because certain foods have sulfur compounds in them already. Onions and garlic have sulfur compounds. And the other problem is many foods have a reaction with the bacteria already in the mouth. Human beings are walking chemistry labs.

You're going to put something in your mouth, a reaction will take place. The method by which these bacteria create odors is they're breaking down protein. So high-protein foods are notorious for creating bad breath. People on the Atkins-type diets, one of the unfortunate side effects is bad breath because the bacteria are able to extract sulfur from the amino acids in certain proteins. And dairy foods are a big culprit. The majority of Americans are somewhat lactose intolerant. And many people, after drinking milk or ice cream or all the good things that we like, cheese especially, they will get this sour milk odor coming from their mouth. Again, it has nothing

to do with the odor itself of the food. It's a reaction between the components in the food and the bacteria that normally live in everyone's mouth. But if the bacteria that causes bad breath is in the back of the mouth, like the throat and the tonsils and all that, well, why is it that when people have bad breath, the first thing they think to do is brush their teeth, which the teeth are in the front of the mouth?

Well, the bacteria which cause tooth decay and all those other problems don't necessarily cause the bad breath odor. Those bacteria are living in the tongue, throat, and tonsils. So many people who come to our clinics in Los Angeles have perfect teeth. I mean, they really have the Hollywood smile. Many of them are celebrities you see on TV or singers in Las Vegas. You can still have beautiful teeth and still have bad breath. In fact, the prime example of that is the well-known star Clark Gable. Clark Gable had horrible breath. Stories abound that Vivian Leigh didn't want to kiss him during the

filming of Gone with the Wind. Clark Gable had no teeth. He wore dentures. But yet he smoked, he drank tons of alcohol, which both keep your mouth extremely dry, which is a trigger for the bacteria to create more odors. And he had horrible breath. So you could still have bad breath and have no teeth at all. So then brushing your teeth is not a remedy for bad breath.

It helps somewhat. Obviously, you don't want to have gum disease and nasty teeth. then brushing your teeth is not a remedy for bad breath. It helps somewhat, obviously, that one has gum disease and nasty teeth. There is a component of gum disease that will cause bad breath. When gums start to bleed, the red blood cells, again, are a fuel source because they're chock full of proteins.

So bleeding gums can lead to bad breath as well, but you don't need teeth to create bad breath. So what does work? Well, research going back to the 90s again mentioned that these anaerobic sulfur producing bacteria are the culprits I got involved in treating bad breath my own daughter when she was 13 years old had a bad breath problem she was in the girls basketball team on the way home from practice or after a game her friends in the car would

continuously offer her gum and mints. So she came home from school crying. She said, Daddy, do I have bad breath? Well, the reality was her breath was only bad when her mouth was dry. In fact, one thing that I noticed about her is as soon as her mouth became dry, her tongue was no longer pink, but she had a white or yellowish coating on the back of the tongue, which is a sign she was overproducing the sulfur compounds. Knowing that the bacteria that cause the problem are anaerobes, which means they can't live in the presence of oxygen, we sort of tinkered with various formulas. The one that worked had an

oxygen compound in it. The oxygen naturally attacked the bacteria and prevented them from creating the odors. That formula eventually became known as TheraBreath, T-H-E-R-A-Breath, and it's a mouthwash toothpaste that's available at Walmart and Target. We even have a website for that. So we actually conquered the problem by attacking the root cause. Instead of masking it, like many of the mouthwashes and toothpastes do with strong medicine-y or minty flavors, we actually attacked the bacteria, putting a straight jacket around them so they can't produce the odors.

And those types of mouthwashes don't have any alcohol in them, correct? Right. You have to be very careful of certain components inside the mouth. And alcohol is a big problem. In fact, the leading mouthwash, the one that kind of burns the inside of your mouth, it has 27% alcohol, which is more than a whole six-pack of beer. And believe me, I've done the research, six-pack of beer won't get rid of your bad breath. And I imagine that was very enjoyable research to conduct. But when you're doing research on bad breath, how do you measure it?

Isn't it somewhat subjective? I know there's an instrument that you use, right? It's called a halometer. It's a machine that measures bad breath. And when I started doing the, I don't want to say experiments on my daughter, it sounds a little medieval, but we were doing research. We got a hold of this instrument, the halometer, and it measures the concentration of sulfur compounds in your breath.

It was initially used in the mining industry to determine how much sulfur there was in coal mines so people wouldn't blow themselves up. We made it a little bit more sophisticated. Someone just opens their mouth, the machine detects the concentration of sulfur. Anything above 100 parts per billion of sulfur in the mouth means that someone will have offensive breath. When people use the alcohol-based mouthwashes, it actually creates such a dry environment that the anaerobic bacteria love it. It's just prime. They can't wait to get the alcohol in the mouth because people who have a dry mouth

will tend to have bad breath. The prime example of that is morning breath. I'm sure we've all experienced morning breath at one time or another. The fact is when you're sleeping at night, your brain knows you're not eating at the same time, so it turns down your saliva production. And those seven or eight hours that you're sleeping, the bacteria just go to town producing sulfur compounds, and as soon as someone opens their mouth next to you in bed, you don't need a halloumi to determine that they have bad breath. Your nose will tell you. Well, is there any way to get rid of that? I mean,

morning breath is morning breath. Doesn't everybody have it? Morning breath is morning breath. The way that we've been able to conquer it is we know, again, that the oxygen sort of puts the straitjacket around the bacteria. So we recommend people use the TheraBreath formulas right before they go to sleep at night, and that way the oxygen action works throughout the night. They wake up in the morning, and not only are they kissable, they're whateverable. What about any remedies in the moment, first aid approaches to bad breath? I mean, you mentioned that your daughter, she would get in the car with her teammates, and they'd be giving her mints.

Are mints a good thing? Or what works in the moment to help get rid of bad breath? Oh, yeah. Great question. The number one recommendation we tell everyone is drink more water. H2O. By H2O, I mean like water, not Pepsi or Coke. Water helps to replenish your saliva. Saliva, again, is nature's gift to us because not only does it contain oxygen, and that's why babies, for example, when they're drooling, they always smell really good. They have such a high level of good saliva, they naturally have the destroyer of bad breath. So babies rarely have bad breath. As we get older, we produce less saliva. We have less ability to conquer the bad breath, and that's why many older people have a bad breath. As we get older, we produce less saliva, we have less ability to conquer the bad

breath, and that's why many older people have a bad breath problem. So drink more water. The other thing is, if you're at a party, look for foods that which are very liquidy, have a lot of water in them, celery, many juicy types of fruits, apples, oranges, things like that. Again, you want to keep your mouth moist. What you want to try to do is avoid the alcohol and avoid things with sugar in them. Sugar feeds the bacteria that cause bad breath. Again, there's the fallacy that strong-tasting breath mints will conquer bad breath. Many of those very strong ones, especially the ones in the little tins,

have two types of sugar in them. And again, the sugar's feeding the bacteria. They're great candy, but candy's not going to get rid of bad breath. If they did, I'd be eating Hershey Kisses all day. You can't get rid of bad breath by stuffing your mouth full of sugar. Not only will it give you bad breath, it'll give you tooth decay and gum disease and plaque. So you're not going to get anywhere with sugar. But isn't it the case that really no matter what you do,

I mean, bad breath is inevitable. Everybody gets bad breath from time to time. Even you, I bet, have bad breath from time to time. Yeah, everyone has bad breath at one time or another. If you're going to eat onions and garlic, you're going to get bad breath. There's no way to get around it. And the fact is, people can do a lot to avoid it. The number one thing besides, you know, keeping your mouth moist is keeping your mouth clean. We recommend to brush your tongue during the day. Your tongue is more or less like those shag carpets from the 70s that our parents had where the bacteria are hiding in between the

little pile that makes up the carpet. They're deep down inside there. So you have to keep your tongue really clean to keep the food particles out of the tongue. The other thing is you need to floss at least once a day. Food particles stuck in between the teeth can act as fuel for the bacteria as well. So normal oral hygiene, just sort of crank it up a bit will definitely help. But when it comes to bad breath, again, the morning breath is a situation we can sort of conquer by using the TheraBreath right before you go to sleep at night. And then there's a post-nasal drip component.

Many people aren't aware of this, but mucus that drains down the back of your throat can contact the back of your tongue. Mucus is full of proteins, which can lead to bad breath. So many people with sinus problems, post-nasal drip, people who have a cold will tend to have a bad breath problem, again, not because of foods that they're eating or not because of their oral hygiene, but because of reaction between the bacteria and mucus. In fact, there's a condition called tonsil stones, where there's excess mucus draining down the throat. It catches into tonsils, and over a period of time, the mucus tends to grow,

and people get these little sort of globs stuck inside their tonsils, which are extremely odorous. We actually have specialized sprays and little kits to get rid of the tonsil stones. So, again, that's a condition people really can't control because physically their tonsils are large enough to trap the bacteria and the mucus. But we can help. We can help. I remember reading something, maybe it was on your website, about white tongue. That's a condition. What is that exactly? White tongue is very common when people haven't eaten for a while.

They didn't drink any liquids for a while. The tongue tends to change colors, again, because more sulfur is being produced. But there is also a condition called hairy tongue. That's not a relative of mine. Hairy tongue is when the fibers that make up your tongue, they're called papillae. When they're a bit longer, again, people tend to trap more bacteria, and that can lead to a condition called black hairy tongue. When people take too many antibiotics, that can change the appearance of your tongue.

Antibiotics are a very broad spectrum, which means they kill good bacteria as well. When that happens, funguses and yeast and all sorts of things can grow in the tongue and cause quite a bit of discoloration. What about medication? I've heard that certain medications can cause bad breath or worsen bad breath. Yes? That's another topic I should have mentioned. Many people who have perfect oral hygiene may end up with bad breath because of the medications they're taking.

Things like antihistamines, antidepressants, high blood pressure medicine all have dry mouth as a side effect. So you can be doing all the good things that we're mentioning, but you pop a couple of pills and all of a sudden your breath is horrible. Again, it could be due to the medication. So again, drink plenty of water to overcome that dry mouth sensation. Well, it's interesting, you know, all the remedies and the toothpastes and the mints and all the things that the toothpastes and the mints and all the things that are supposed to get rid of bad breath.

And what you're saying is that really just drink more water is probably one of the best things you can do. And a lot of these other things mask the problem or make it worse. So it's good to know. Dr. Harold Katz has been my guest. He is a UCLA-trained dentist, founder of the California Breath Clinics, and author of the book, The Bad Breath Bible. He also has a line of fresh breath products called TheraBreath, and there's a link to his website in the show notes.

Thanks, Doctor. As you may have experienced yourself, finding true love can be difficult, particularly the second or third time around. Psychologist Terry Orbach followed the same 746 divorced people for 25 years, and 71% of them have found a new love of their life. How? Well, one prerequisite seems to be the ability to let go of the past. Those who said they no longer had strong feelings for their ex, good or bad feelings, were more likely to find someone new. And how did they find their new

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