The New Year is an ide­al time to set new health res­o­lu­tions, but for many of us, stick­ing to those res­o­lu­tions are trou­bled by fears and chal­lenges. How­ev­er, we are for­tu­nate that sci­ence is on our side, shed­ding es­sen­tial hacks on how to turn a goal in­to ac­tion and en­sur­ing tri­umph. It comes down to one word: Sched­ules

One thing is cer­tain: "When your sched­ule changes, you can lose the reg­u­lar self-care rou­tines that kept you ac­tive, eat­ing right and man­ag­ing stress - habits we need to main­tain in fight­ing dis­ease," says Dr Monique Tel­lo, Har­vard Health.

Be­fore COVID-19, the pat­tern of dai­ly life was fair­ly reg­u­lar. Drea­ry for many, but reg­u­lar. Then the pan­dem­ic in­sert­ed ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties in­to our dai­ly sched­ules and count­less per­sons are still try­ing to ad­just. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, we add New Year Res­o­lu­tions, which many strug­gle to main­tain. In fact, re­search from Uni­ver­si­ty of Penn­syl­va­nia states, “Af­ter the first week of the new year, just 77 per­cent of res­o­lu­tion mak­ers are still on track, and af­ter six months, on­ly about 40 per­cent will have stayed the course.”

Why do New Year res­o­lu­tions fail?

Why is keep­ing a com­mit­ment to bet­ter health so tough? Re­searchers have iden­ti­fied sev­er­al cul­prits, such as set­ting a goal that's too vague (I’m go­ing to get in shape, I’m go­ing to man­age my stress) or hav­ing un­re­al­is­tic ex­pec­ta­tions (lose 30 pounds by March 1st).

Es­sen­tial­ly, it is easy to change your at­ti­tude but dif­fi­cult to change your be­hav­iour.

Out­smart­ing the odds, means un­der­stand­ing your sched­ule and set­ting doable goals (go from couch to a 5K, not a triathlon just yet) and then break­ing them down in­to rea­son­able steps that you can man­age with­out dis­rupt­ing your bal­ance.

SLEEP SCHED­ULES

An in­con­sis­tent sleep sched­ule throws off your cir­ca­di­an rhythm, the body's in­ter­nal clock. If you go to bed be­fore your cir­ca­di­an sleep time, you will have dif­fi­cul­ty falling asleep. Stay up too late, and you will like­ly wake up be­fore you are ful­ly re­freshed. Ei­ther way, an ir­reg­u­lar sched­ule leads to dif­fi­cul­ty get­ting suf­fi­cient sleep, caus­ing chron­ic sleep de­pri­va­tion, mood and crit­i­cal think­ing prob­lems, and an in­creased risk for heart dis­ease, obe­si­ty, and di­a­betes.

MEAL SCHED­ULES

Cir­ca­di­an rhythm al­so af­fects hunger and me­tab­o­lism, your body's process of ex­pend­ing en­er­gy and burn­ing calo­ries. Changes in sched­ules, ig­nor­ing your cir­ca­di­an rhythm, and you could ex­pe­ri­ence more hunger and slow­er your me­tab­o­lism, im­pair­ing the abil­i­ty to burn calo­ries.

Be­ing at home all the time can dis­rupt dai­ly meal sched­ules, par­tic­u­lar­ly for work­ing peo­ple. "When you're home, you're clos­er to the kitchen and it's easy to get a snack. Eat­ing through­out the day means your blood sug­ar lev­els and in­sulin will be up all the time, and it's im­pos­si­ble for the body to burn fat. That can lead to weight gain. You need pe­ri­ods of time when you're not eat­ing to al­low your body to burn fat stores," Dr Tel­lo says.

EX­ER­CISE SCHED­ULES

Ex­er­cise habits of­ten fall by the way­side when sched­ule changes. With work-from-home sched­ules be­ing utilised more, your rou­tine may have been dis­rupt­ed and you may not form a new one yet. One re­sult: "We've been see­ing more peo­ple com­plain­ing of back pain and pain ra­di­at­ing down the leg," Dr Tel­lo says. "It's from too much sit­ting and im­prop­er pos­ture, which leads to weak core mus­cles and pain. Too much sit­ting is linked to pre­ma­ture death.”

MED­ICA­TION SCHED­ULES

A change in your ac­tiv­i­ties may af­fect your abil­i­ty to stick to a med­ica­tion sched­ule. But some­times skip­ping even one dose pos­es health risks. For ex­am­ple, if you have Parkin­son's dis­ease and for­get to take your pill, you may ex­pe­ri­ence mus­cle freez­ing and be un­able to move.

RE­LAX­ATION SCHED­ULES

Down­time is of­ten lost with changes in work or fam­i­ly re­spon­si­bil­i­ties. But down­time is con­sid­ered a nec­es­sary part of self-care. Do­ing ac­tiv­i­ties that keep you cen­tred helps ward off stress. "Stress cre­ates a cas­cade of events in the body lead­ing to in­flam­ma­tion, high blood sug­ar, and high blood pres­sure. It can lead to car­dio­vas­cu­lar dis­ease and de­pres­sion and oth­er men­tal health dis­or­ders," Dr Tel­lo notes.

Take stock of what’s im­por­tant

Your an­nu­al res­o­lu­tions may feel dif­fer­ent than be­fore, and it's im­por­tant to take stock of what's im­por­tant in your life long be­fore the (par­ty!) clock strikes mid­night on De­cem­ber 31. If there's any­thing that we've learned in 2021, it's not to take our health for grant­ed; in 2022, a re­newed fo­cus on your own lifestyle and pri­or­i­ties may be top of mind.

We're not just talk­ing about a new di­et or fit­ness rou­tine — set your sights on rev­o­lu­tion­is­ing your men­tal health, trou­bleshoot­ing your sleep rou­tine or trans­form­ing your liv­ing spaces (good­bye, messy clos­et!).

Cre­ate a list of New Year's res­o­lu­tions that are easy, at­tain­able and can help you cre­ate a BAL­ANCED lifestyle each and every day. You'll start 2022 with a health­i­er body and a rich­er mind mas­ter­ing your SCHED­ULES. Find ways to stay on track with res­o­lu­tions us­ing a plan­ner to help you to stay ac­count­able. This year, it's time to put YOU first.

Share to us YOUR 2022 HEALTH RES­O­LU­TION

and how you in­tend to keep it!

Email: guardian­health­plus2021@gmail.com