I have tried to create a flossing habit at least a dozen times in my adult life. The same thing would happen each time. I would be diligent for a couple weeks and then I would get sick or go on vacation and the “habit” was gone by the time I was back to normal.
When I had my son just about all my habits changed, mostly for the worse. I was lucky if I bushed my teeth in the morning since I didn’t have a consistent wake up. The same was true for night time. I never really went to bed so there was no trigger for my nighttime routine habits.
So since I was basically starting fresh with a lot of my habits I thought why not do it right. So I decided to floss.
I used this site http://tinyhabitsacademy.org/http://tinyhabitsacademy.org/ after reading about it in Atomic Habits by James Clear. Tiny habits academy sets you up with a real person who checks in on how your new habits are going.
I decided to floss 1 tooth on top in the morning and 1 tooth from the bottom at night.
I did that for a week. Then I flossed two teeth each time I brushed. If I could do that for a whole week then I increased my number by one.
It sounds silly, but the whole point of tiny habits is to be so easy you won’t say no. This slow build of one tooth per week going now for a couple months has got me thinking flossing all my teeth is no big deal.
Since my son is six months old now and I wasn’t even brushing consistently when he was born, I guess it took me six months to build my flossing habit.
Now for the next habit!
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