New year, new you?

Making a change for the better at the start of the New Year can be a fantastic thing for your health and well being, with aims such as drinking less alcohol, joining the gym and cutting out chocolate probably high up on the average list! Think about it, if you started making New Year’s resolutions at the age of 18, and successfully followed through each year, the list of lifetime achievements could be amazing! However many people either don’t make New Year’s resolutions, or start them but at some point lose momentum, and ‘fail’…

And there lies the downfall with the New Year’s resolution – people are setting themselves up for failure most of the time. ‘I’m never eating chocolate again’, ‘I’m going to the gym 5 times a week this year’ and many other claims you will no doubt hear from friends or state yourself. But with those targets, the moment you slip up by missing a gym session or indulging in some Lindt chocolate balls (other chocolates are available…) a part of your mind thinks ‘I’ve not achieved my target I might as well forget the whole thing’, and then you go back to how you were last year – maybe until the next new year’s resolution where you might try again with the same or a slightly different tactic.

Here are some tips on making successful and lasting changes for a healthier lifestyle:

1. Try the ‘new month resolution’ approach.

Personally, I don’t want to wait each year to try and rectify a mistake or make a change! At the start of each month I think about how everything is for myself and my family at the moment, and what I WANT to change. I will put them in an order and choose my target for the next month (either something to add in or something which needs to stop or be cut down).

2. Add, don’t take away.

If you are changing your diet for example, it is much easier to add something in that is healthy, rather than eliminating food groups all together. Once your diet and health have improved with good habits it is then easier to take away and restrict other things.

3. Use stepping stones.

With sugar as an example, the goal might be to eliminate it from your diet. If you know going cold turkey is going to be too hard, step one might be to reduce to 1 teaspoon of sugar as opposed to 2. Or you may want to change from white to brown organic sugar. Or switch to a healthy sweetener such as agave or stevia. You can then make that change easier, and address the next step whenever you are ready.

4. Only change something that you truly want to change.

If you aren’t ready to change it either think about what that reason is, or modify the change to make it easier i.e. using the stepping stone approach.

Happy New Year!

Andrew Harlow – Derby Chiropractor