Crossing the finish line on New Years Day with the New York Road Runner’s Emerald Nuts Midnight Run was especially exhilarating for me because it represented a near completion of my commitment to work on myself for 52 days of exercise, education and enlightenment. They say it takes 52 days to make lasting change in your life. Crossing the finish line that morning represented 51 days of my new regimen. I was almost there. The next day, I would be done.
The feeling of accomplishing one’s goals in life at whatever moment in time and the sense of accomplishment it brings is awesome. It opens up your mind to endless possibilities, opportunities in the world, and challenges you can overcome when you put your mind to something. You basically start to feel invincible.
The New Year brings to us thoughts of setting new goals, opening up our minds to new prospects, new adventures, new challenges. Sometimes, however, it can bring fears that may paralyze us from moving forward. Many what ifs…what if I can’t make it, what if I do not finish, is this goal set too high for me to attain… The overwhelming feeling caused by the exact date of January 1st and what it means, new starts, new beginnings, change . That in itself may be what creates the obstacle, or may make one feel the bar was set too high.
What made my 52 day challenge more exciting, was the fact that it was a random day that I chose to start, it did not coincide with New Years in mind, or end on the 31st, or January 1st. I had no unreasonable expectations or pressures that I put on myself. It was just “get your butt out of bed a bit earlier and get outside.” I would then strap on the MP3 headphones and go. …After a few “weeks” 🙂 I even developed a need, you might even say a longing, to smell the fresh air, inhale the oxygen in my lungs, stretch my muscles, and allow the productive thoughts to flow.
Well 52 days became 53 days and counting…. I don’t feel like stopping. Maybe I am even a bit apprehensive that this new-found energy and positive mindset may stop, if the exercise and enlightenment stops. My mind has opened ideas and goals I have had, but never started, for a fear of not completing, or setting too high a hurdle. After completing 52 days, I now am ready to take on other challenges.
Well, today, I am making that commitment, not a New Year’s goal, hey it’s January 15th. That burden of the New Year is off, but the desire to make a change and make a difference is still here. I have been so fascinated and impressed by the work of our First Lady, Michelle Obama and her quest to improve the health of our country through diet and exercise. Her “Let’s Move” campaign is what our country so badly needs. Our diets and lifestyle are so poor and we are now more susceptible to degenerative diseases than ever before in our history. What I know additionally, is that many health care practitioners are now starting to understand that the majority of illness have a direct relationship to the mouth and oral cavity. What we put in our mouths, our diet, how we care for or oral health,even the different materials used to restore our teeth, all have an impact on our total overall health. Well, my blog is to let more people become aware of how the oral health relates to total health. We use our mouths constantly from eating, speaking, it is how people make their first impressions of us. I would like to discuss some of the new trends in dentistry, give information about diet and lifestyle and how just about everything relates to the mouth. My obsession, the oral cavity in each of its facets is what I am passionate about. So sharing information and focusing on our oral health is my Dental HealthStyles blog.
Day by day, running has gone from being a challenge, to a necessary part of my life. Helping to improve the oral condition of people is what I do, and is just part of me and has been for over 25 years. Now sharing this knowledge from a total overall health and wellness perspective by the way of a blog , a new challenge to myself, will first start out with me saying to myself “get your butt up and get started typing” , but then eventually, it becomes a necessary part of life just much as the great feeling I now have when I get up to perform my exercise, education and enlightenment routine; getting the taste of oxygen into my lungs; stepping outside in the fresh air to run on a cold winter’ s morning.
Well, I am now on day 64 of running, but who’s counting anymore…………..
Dr Donna Williams
Dr. Williams began her career in the field of dentistry at Howard University and graduated from Baltimore College Dental Surgery/University of Maryland. She is one of a select group of general dentists who have completed a fellowship in Holistic dentistry, and is also certified to use the only FDA approved laser for periodontal surgery. She is passionate about improving the health status of people throughout the community and beyond. Contact her at: Morningside Dental Care.
Dental HealthStyles 