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Healthy New Year habits: some suggestions

Healthy New Year habits: January has long been the month of failed New Year’s resolutions, but lately it seems to have become the month of silly neologisms. With buzzwords such as Veganuary or Dry January, January is declared a month of abstinence in order to (finally) improve one’s health and erase the supposed sins of the rest of the year.

What nonsense, probably dreamed up by some enterprising influencer starlets and marketing departments to sell their consumer junk. To me, it all sounds suspiciously like useless health activism and other social media trend nonsense like superfoods, clean eating, fitspiration or whatever it’s called.

It should be clear to most people that actionism is almost always doomed to failure. Instead, the path to real change is a series of small steps and slow changes in habits. Unspectacular, not very sales-promoting, but effective and sustainable. With this in mind, here are a few suggestions for making your life healthier throughout the year.

Persistence and patience will get you there

Establishing new healthy habits and breaking bad ones takes persistence, diligence and patience. Unfortunately, in my opinion, these are not virtues that are valued or encouraged in our consumer society. Instead, the emphasis is on instant gratification and short-term success. However, this attitude will only lead us down the garden path when it comes to establishing new habits. We expect too much in too little time, and our goals, expectations and demands on ourselves are unrealistically high. As a result, we inevitably experience failure, become frustrated and give up quickly.

Healthy New Year habits
Patience and persistence, rather than action, will get you there (Photo: Klaus Nielsen at Pexels).

But the truth about creating new habits is that there are no shortcuts and no magic bullets for quick and effortless success. This is true whether we are talking about sport, exercise and health, or any of our other resolutions and plans. Even though there are a lot of self-proclaimed internet coaches and influencer stars out there trying to sell us these miracle cures. I could probably make a lot of money promoting such false promises. But miracles only happen in fairy tales.

Healthy New Year habits
Change is possible (behrouz sasani at Pexels)

One step at a time

Just because there are no shortcuts or miracle cures doesn’t mean that we can’t change and have no chance of achieving our goals. Whether it’s exercising, moving more or eating better. However, we need to let go of unrealistic ideas and tailor our plans to our abilities. No one goes from couch potato to super athlete in four weeks. Just as no one can become fluent in a foreign language in four weeks.

Patience and persistence are essential, but this also means that far-reaching changes in our lives are possible over time if we harness the power of small changes. This means taking things one step at a time, slowly building new habits into our lives. This is also how we build up our patience and perseverance, step by step, without overwhelming ourselves.

Healthy New Year habits
Whether it’s diet or exercise, change doesn’t happen overnight (RedWolf at Pexels)

Build new habits slowly

Maybe you’ve decided to get up an hour earlier in the morning to exercise, but you’re frustrated because you either can’t get out of bed or you struggle every time and start the day in a bad mood? Then think about whether getting up an hour earlier isn’t too much to ask. What about getting up ten minutes or fifteen minutes earlier and doing a few simple exercises? This will allow you and your body to get used to the change, while giving you a sense of achievement if you get that quarter of an hour of exercise in the morning on a regular basis.

After two or three weeks, you can try increasing the time to 20 or 25 minutes. A few weeks later you could try half an hour, and so on. In this way, you work your way up step by step. You can take a similar approach with your diet, for example. Instead of changing your diet radically, try a new diet for just one day a week or for one meal a day. If that works, add another day or meal.

Healthy New Year habits
Many small changes will get you there (Ketut Subiyanto at Pexels)

This step-by-step method takes longer than radical changes and may sound a little boring compared to spectacular radical cures, but in my experience it is much more promising. Your many small changes will add up over time and get you where you want to be. Just give it a try.

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Please note: if you have never done any serious sport, suffer from pre-existing conditions, have been inactive for a long time or are over forty years old, you should have a medical check-up before you get active. Talk to your GP about your plans and get advice. If you have the opportunity, you can also consult a specialised sports physician. You find a corresponding external offer here.

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