Gratitude and Floss
What happens when you pair the habit you resist most with something that feels really good?
tl;dr: If we want to forge ourselves into our highest expression of good, gratitude can work miracles in reprogramming our relationship to self-care—from aversion to positive attachment.
Often, we try to begin a habit in response to an intellectual realisation. For me, that habit was flossing. I’ve seen enough stats at this point to understand it’s a low-effort, high-impact routine. For example, a 2011 study of 5,000+ older adults showed that those who didn’t floss had a 30% higher risk of death (source).
Still, developing the habit felt impossible. The three minutes felt tedious every time. My aversion to the action was constantly at odds with the intellect-driven willpower I used to keep up the routine.
Eventually, flossing became a kind of mirror—reflecting my mental health and overall resilience. On weeks I felt great, I flossed. But during more difficult times, it was one of the first things to fall away. If you imagine resilience as a circle, my “resilience for flossing” lived somewhere near the outer edge.
And that’s the problem.
It isn’t wise to let our self-care habits live on the edge of resilience. Because when resilience contracts (as it inevitably does), those habits fall away too. And when they do, they often leave behind shame spirals and unconscious self-judgment.
A few years ago, my friend Will Morales shared a practice that shifted everything for me. Each morning, he reflects on three human interactions from the previous day that he’s grateful for. After a few months of trying it out, I could feel the immense power of this simple practice. Most of all, it was easy to maintain—because of how damn good it felt to start the day that way.
That led to an epiphany:
What if I paired gratitude with the habit I resisted most?
I committed to a month of focusing entirely on things I was grateful for while flossing. The goal was to activate real feelings of warmth and gratitude in the body. Just like in meditation, my mind would drift—but I kept coming back to the point of focus. I practiced making my gratitude simpler and more elemental—like being grateful for breath. And on harder days, I returned to Will’s more personal, human-centered reflection.
Then something amazing happened.
My body started to associate the felt sense of gratitude with the action of flossing.
Suddenly, flossing wasn’t a chore. It became one of the most ease-filled, grounding parts of my day. It moved from the edge of my resilience to the very center. On tough days, instead of falling away, the habit became stronger.
I noticed myself automatically reaching for floss when I woke up feeling down—like my body knew that time spent in gratitude could open me up to the day ahead.
Our minds, shaped by millions of years of survival, have a strong negativity bias (we were more likely to survive if we assumed the stick behind our feet was a snake). But by introducing small, intentional moments of gratitude, we can gently rewire our minds to remember the joys, beauty, and possibility in life.
So here’s a simple challenge:
Identify the self-care habit you feel the most aversion to—and try stacking it with a simple gratitude practice.
See what shifts.
With warmth,
Dalton Follows
p.s. I would LOVE to see you at tomorrow's weekly meditation (12:00-12:30pm MST) – CLICK TO RSVP
