Three things I learned about the small things by flossing every day
It’s all about the small things.
Confession: I’ve never been the best at forming habits. I always thought I was missing the gene that makes habits possible. But it was an offhand comment by a dental hygienist when I was 19 that would end up changing everything for me nearly 10 years later.
What she said was that there’s a limit to how many times you can brush your teeth in a day before your gums get irritated and it becomes counter-productive, but you can floss as many times as you want.
When it comes to dental hygiene, brushing your teeth is a big thing. It’s vital. You have to do it regularly, every single day, to keep your teeth healthy.
On the other hand, most people see flossing as an optional thing that doesn’t make a lot of difference. It’s tricky to learn to do properly, hard to master, and takes nearly as long as brushing your teeth, for a lower payoff. You don’t even get minty fresh breath out of the deal. So why do it? Just because dentists say to? Nawww, man.
What made me think of flossing again after so many years of dismissing it? It wasn’t my dentist’s recurring litany of “your gums wouldn’t bleed if you didn’t floss” (which I didn’t believe anyway) but a recurring post-lunch meeting at the office. I was paranoid of having something stuck in my teeth while I was presenting something to my colleagues, and I wasn’t up for brushing my teeth in a public bathroom, so I started flossing after eating lunch, 5 days a week.
How did this change my life? Well, first of all, my dentist was right. My gums really did stop bleeding when she poked at them. My teeth felt cleaner after brushing, even though my brushing routine didn’t change.
But more importantly, I learned some lessons completely unrelated to dental hygiene:
Automation is everything.
I bought a package of pre-threaded floss picks at the dollar store, and kept them in my desk drawer next to my lunch, so that when I put my lunch tote back in the drawer, grabbing a flosser was easy. I’d then quickly floss while checking messages, before my lunch break ended.
Pre-threaded, because they’re easier to use than spools of floss.
Dollar store, because it was cheap and right next to the office, so it was easy to buy more by taking a short walk.
Right next to where I kept my lunch tote, where I would already be anyway, so I didn’t have to add any new motions to pick one up. Once it was in my hand, what to do next was obvious.
Make forming new habits as easy for yourself as possible by chaining them onto existing habits.
Small changes can yield big results — listen to experts!
I really hadn’t believed my dentist when she said my bleeding gums weren’t caused by the pointy metal stick she was poking them with, but by the fact that I wasn’t flossing enough. But she turned out to be right, and my comfort in the dentist’s chair has never been better.
This in turn has lessened my anxiety around dentist visits, and greatly increased my confidence in my appearance and in my smile — not least because I know there’s nothing stuck between my teeth after lunch.
Starting is the most important part.
You really never know where something is going to lead you or how much it will impact your life, even if you do tons of research and meticulously plan and prepare, because no one knows the future.
But if you just do the minimum necessary to get started, you can continue to research, plan, and prepare while still getting things done and reaping the rewards.
I’m not perfect. I still struggle at forming habits and making them stick. But I keep coming back to this one success story to remind myself of what I am capable of, and I keep learning new lessons from it.
This is the most important lesson I’ve learned from flossing — even the smallest of self-improvements can make a big difference in your outlook, and every victory, no matter how small, is still a victory. Anything is achievable, little by little.
