HEALTH PLUS MED­ICAL COR­RE­SPON­DENT

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.

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.

What can you do?

Take ac­tion when you recog­nise im­bal­ances in your sched­ule.

1. Re­set your sleep.

You sleep best when the time you sleep match­es your cir­ca­di­an rhythm. Some peo­ple are born night owls, and oth­ers are born ear­ly ris­ers. Fig­ure out which you are, then go to sleep and wake up at the same time every day so it works with your rhythm. Keep the fo­cus on qual­i­ty sleep, at least six to eight hours to feel re­boot­ed.

A reg­u­lar wake time and ex­po­sure to morn­ing sun­light will help your body ad­just. At night, turn off elec­tron­ic screens at least 60 to 90 min­utes be­fore bed­time, light from mon­i­tors and de­vices can dis­rupt your cir­ca­di­an rhythm.

2. Re­boot your di­et - Don’t fo­cus on sub­tract­ing food.

In­stead of mak­ing an 'I want to lose weight' pledge, try 'I'm go­ing to put more fruits and veg­eta­bles on my plate’ ad­just­ing your in­ter­nal nar­ra­tive, so the res­o­lu­tion is a pos­i­tive ac­tion that you can per­form over and over. When it's an ad­di­tion in­stead of a take­away, you're more like­ly to re­peat it un­til the ac­tion be­comes an au­to­mat­ic habit.

Plan for Snack At­tacks

The hours be­tween mid-af­ter­noon and din­ner time are when crav­ings kick in hard. As part of your meal sched­ules, be­fore leav­ing for work, pack a 200-calo­rie pro­tein-com­plex carb snack. Think: hum­mus and pi­ta chips or al­monds and a ba­nana. Then, when the ‘snack jones’ strikes, you will have a go-to treat to avoid un­healthy snack­ing.

3. Recom­mit to an ex­er­cise reg­i­men.

Hav­ing ac­tiv­i­ty sched­uled in­to your day will make you more like­ly to do it. You don't have to go to a gym. Try a home work­out video, go for a walk, take reg­u­lar ac­tiv­i­ty breaks, or get a stand­ing desk if you work from home.

Bite size goals – Take it a week at a time

It's eas­i­er to make a plan to go run­ning three times this week than vow to run three times a week in­def­i­nite­ly. Make your fit­ness goals achiev­able week by week rather than so far-reach­ing, you'll have more suc­cess, and that in it­self is mo­ti­vat­ing.

Fi­nal­ly, STRESS!

One big prob­lem with mak­ing stress re­duc­tion your New Year's res­o­lu­tion is that it's so ab­stract. How­ev­er, a sol­id stress man­age­ment reg­i­men is es­sen­tial, set­ting spe­cif­ic goals and be­ing in­ten­tion­al with them. It can be med­i­ta­tion, yo­ga, sit­ting out­side in na­ture, or any­thing that helps you dis­con­nect from stress­ful events or ac­tiv­i­ties, pause, and re­flect. It should be some­thing you do dai­ly, even just for 10 min­utes. Be­fore you know it, it will be­come a habit!

Look out for HEALTH PLUS every Tues­day for more in­for­ma­tive and health­ful ar­ti­cles. If you have any ques­tions or con­cerns re­gard­ing this top­ic, please email Guardian­Health­Plus2020@gmail.com