6 weeks = Habit

Back in February, my dentist told me that it takes 6 weeks of doing something regularly in order for it to become a habit. At the time, she was talking to me about flossing.

One of the best pieces of advice she said was, "You know how, when you floss right now, your gums bleed? Floss every day and it'll stop doing that by next week." Wow, really? Just a few days of flossing and it'll stop? So I tried it. And she was right.

And some of you might remember how I confessed online to all the world about how I didn't floss every day but would try starting to since I saw it as all coming down to a matter of self-control. The lesson was this: if I don't even have the self-control to be able to do something every day that's as simple as flossing, then how I can expect to do every day anything else that I should be doing every day?

Well, it has been 60 days... exactly. More than 8 weeks now. And except for 1 - maybe 2 - days that I accidentally missed because of extenuating circumstances... I have pretty much flossed every day. Congratulate me. It has become a habit.