22 New Year Resolutions (You Can Actually Stick To)

1.      Declutter – A cluttered home has a big impact on our mental health. Clutter can play a part in overwhelming the mind with too much sensory information. This can cause stress and anxiety. As they say, if your space is cluttered so is your mind. Start by decluttering the space you frequent the most i.e. your home office or the living room and slowly work your way around the house.

2.      Sleep more – Sleep is probably the most important factor in keeping us healthy and functioning at an optimal level. Studies have shown most adults around the world are sleep deprived. Try to get into bed an hour earlier and take it from there. Keep to a regular sleep routine, meaning sleeping and waking up at the same time. Click here to learn more about the benefits of sleep, and how to get more of it.

3.      Drink more water – our bodies are 60% water. We are losing water 24/7 through breathing, sweating and digestion. Therefore, we need to keep our water intake high not to become dehydrated. Keeping hydrated will benefit your brain, your skin, your heart and it will keep you fuller. In fact, sometimes we mistake dehydration for being hungry resulting in the consumption of more calories.

4.      Exercise more – This is probably top of everyone’s list. Over used, but definitely NOT over rated. Exercise controls weight, helps prevent disease and illness, improves your mood, boosts your energy levels (no, really), promotes better sleep and can be fun and social. Click here to learn how to fit exercise around work.

5.      Eat more veg – We are all chronically under eating on fibre. Vegetables have been shown to reduce inflammation; inflammation is responsible for 40% of diseases. It will make going to the toilet less of a pain. Keep your skin looking young and vibrant. Help keep away the sniffles. Start with including more veg with your dinner, fresh or frozen, they are all the same.

6.      Eat more Priobiotics – Probiotics are anything that help increase the good bacteria in our gut. Probiotics include:

·          Kimchi

·          Sauerkraut

·          Greek yoghurt

·          Yoghurt drinks that contain live bacteria

·          Kefir

·          Kombucha

·          Miso

·          Tempeh

7.      Get a health check – The benefits of health checks are endless. Not only will it give you peace of mind about your health, it will also give you a good indication of where you stand with your health. This is the best time of year to have one if you are planning to make changes to your lifestyle and your health. The health check will give you a breakdown of your current health parameters, which can be compared when you have achieved your health goals.

8.      Drink less alcohol – Alcohol or an excessive amount of alcohol has been shown to increase the likelihood of developing certain cancers and illnesses. It can also have a detrimental effect on sleep. A good place to start is dry January and to increase the number of alcohol free days during the week.

9.      Do an intermittent fast – Before you start intermittent fasting, it is a good idea to know what your relationship with hunger is. If you can survive without food for 16 hours and feel fine, then great. If you are someone who gets hangry if you go more than 3 hours without something to eat, perhaps start small and slowly work your way up to 16 hours.

10.   Give up something you are addicted to – Dopamine is the feel good chemical that keeps us coming back for more. Addictions can come in many forms. From Heroin to scrolling through social media. We are all addicted to something, whether that is coffee or pastries, we all have something we feel like we cannot live without. Rather than giving up something you like (providing it is not hard drugs), it is important to analyse your relationship with that substance or activity and to not let it rule your life.

11.   Read More – Self-explanatory, read more books, fiction or nonfiction. Discover what you are into and read more of it.

12.   Take the stairs – Sounds simple, but over a year, it will add up. If you take one flight of stairs every day at work for a year, you will end up burning 1000’s more calories.

13.   Volunteer – This is only for people who have the time, but many organisations offer volunteer days for their staff. Ask your line manager if you can have 3-4 days off per year to volunteer somewhere. They will probably say yes.

14.   Give up the fizz – Fizzy drinks are high in sugars and sometimes caffeine. They spike your sugar levels, they do no hydrate you and eventually they will make you feel hungrier. Skip the Coke and ask for sparkling water.

15.   Practice Mindfulness – Mindfulness has been shown to improve wellbeing by relieving stress, anxiety and improving ] sleep. It can also be practiced anywhere quiet where you can sit down. Start with just two minutes and work your way up.

16.   Reduce your screen time – Reducing screen time will make you get up and move around, boost your mood, reduce your stress, and improve focus. We are all glued to our screens, the TV, phone and computers. We should all give our brain as well as our eyes a rest.

17.   Invest in your skin care – Invest in a moisturiser, SPF and exfoliator. These three are essential for keep the skin looking young and vibrant.

18.   Make your bed as soon as you wake up – Even if you get nothing done during that day, at least you made your bed.

19.   Walk more – We are all living sedentary lifestyles and it is slowly killing us. Walk more; walk in the morning, lunchtime and after work. If you work at home, go for a walk for at least 15 minutes around the block before work. Do the same after work.

20.   Post less on social media – Social media can be a great tool, if used correctly. If you find yourself posting and spending too long thinking about what to post and what to write, then perhaps it is time to take a break and concentrate on things that make you truly happy. Not the dopamine hit we get from someone liking our post.

21.   Get 15 minutes of sun light every morning – This is essential, sun light exposure, especially in the morning, plays a vital role in our health. From our sleep to our hormone levels, sunlight sends the signal to your brain to produce hormones such as testosterone and helps get you to sleep and stay asleep at night.

22.   Let go of negative and unhelpful thoughts – It is easy to dwell on thoughts, but we should remember that we are not our thoughts. We should acknowledge the thought then let it go.

How the 2 minute rule can help you stick to your new year resolutions

What is the two minute rule?

The two minute rule, as explained in the book Atomic Habits, is scaling down a habit or new activity to two minutes or less. Almost any habit you wish to take up this New Year can be scaled down to 2 minutes. For example:

·        I want to read more books this year = Read for 2 minutes each night after you get into bed

·        I want to exercise more = do 2 minutes of exercise every morning after you wake up

·        I want to walk in the morning before work = go out for a 2 minute walk before you start work

·        Practice mindfulness = spend 2 minutes a day sat still with your eyes closed.

The idea works by making a new habit as easy as possible at the start. Anyone can do an activity for 2 minutes or less. The concept is based on our nature to continue to do something once we have started it. Especially if we think it will be good for us. The point is not to just do the one thing for two minutes, the point is showing up. As the old adage goes, showing up is half the battle. Doing the easy thing on a more consistent basis is much easier than trying to optimise something you have not standardised.

Once the two-minute habit becomes a ritual, it becomes a gateway to performing the new habit. “The more you ritualise the beginning of a process, the more likely it becomes that you can slip into the state of deep focus that is required to do great things”. Make it easy to start and the rest will follow. If you feel like this is a trick, then only perform the new habit for two minutes. Even if you want to do more, do not. After a few weeks, you will start to say I have already started; I might as well do a bit more.

The secret to forming a new habit, and getting it to stick, is to always stop before the point it starts to feel like work. This point differs from person to person, but eventually the point will also take to longer to reach if you keep showing up. “The best way is to always stop when you are going good,” Ernest Hemingway.

This strategy also works by reinforcing your identity. If you keep up showing up to the gym, even for two minutes, you start to form the identity of someone who exercises. We seldom think about progress in this way because we are usually consumed by the end goal. Another way to frame it is, 1 minute of running is better than not running, 1 minute of yoga, is better than no yoga, reading one paragraph is better than not reading at all and so on. Eventually once you have mastered the habit, you can move on to the next step. Which might be 3 minutes or, as is in most cases, a lot longer.