Every year, people make resolutions that they are unable to keep throughout the year. Even so, they continue to announce new resolutions year after year. Most often, these personal promises are health-related. Along with budgeting correctly and living life to the fullest, the most common New Year’s resolution ideas include exercising more, eating better, and losing weight. Exercise and weight loss were actually the number one resolution of 2021.
Perhaps people overlook the most useful of all New Year’s health tips: make realistic goals.
It is also helpful to create well-defined goals based on steps that you can take rather than on arbitrary numbers, such as a goal weight or exercise goals related to achieving a specific time for a run or lifting a particular amount of weight.
By focusing on achievable steps, such as visiting the doctor for a preventative exam, eating healthy foods, and engaging in exercise (concentrating on consistency rather than achievement), you have a much better chance of keeping your New Year’s resolution.
In this article, we will look into achievable New Year’s resolutions for health. If you can make the right choices for your New Year resolutions in 2022, you can set yourself up for success while actually making changes that will bring long-term benefits to your health.
Here are the steps you can take to adopt healthy habits for the new year.
Preventative Doctors Visits
“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” is a common saying that most people do not take too seriously. However, it is actually good advice when it comes to preventable health issues. A checkup with your primary care provider is easy to cross off your list of New Year resolutions for 2022.
In essence, preventative medicine is when you take measures, such as visiting the doctor or adopting healthy habits, in order to avoid diseases.
A trip to the doctor can set you off on the right path to total bodily health.
Here are some protective measures and tests that your doctor can offer during a preventative health visit.
- They can ensure that you are up to date on immunizations for infectious diseases like measles, flu, Covid-19, tetanus, and chickenpox.
- They can perform screening, such as a pap smear and PSA tests.
- They can offer insights into your weight with BMI (body mass index) tests.
- The doctor can perform a full-body checkup to find any issues, including listening to your heart and lungs.
- A doctor will often order full blood tests to check kidney and liver functions and look for signs of disease.
- Finally, they can check your eyes, ears, and throat.
Benefits of Preventative Visits
There are multiple benefits to getting a complete physical checkup from your doctor.
- You can have peace of mind from knowing your full health status.
- The doctor can point out things to work on and provide advice for specific healthy habits for the new year.
- Most conditions and diseases respond best to early treatment, so if the doctor finds any issues, you will have an early start on treatment.
- Your doctor can offer specific New Year’s health tips related to your current health status and issues that you need to improve upon in the next year.
After you perform this easy-to-achieve step, you can move on to daily health practices.
Healthy Food Choices
Many diets out there claim to help you stay clean or detox your body. It can be difficult to find the best options for your needs and decide whether a diet is effective or a gimmick.
The best New Year’s health tip related to your diet is to keep it simple. You can focus on eating specific nutrient-rich foods and avoiding processed foods and those with refined sugars.
Also, you can consult with your doctor during your checkup and ask for a referral to a nutritionist if you have specific diet-related questions or struggle with health issues like high blood pressure or diabetes that a diet could help.
Specific New Year’s resolution ideas can be related to avoiding unhealthy foods. For example, you could decide to stay away from junk foods, sweetened drinks, alcohol, caffeinated drinks, or fatty foods.
If one of your New Year resolutions for 2022 is to lose weight, you can opt for a doctor-approved diet that will help you do so.
You should generally choose whole foods that are natural and not processed or artificially flavored. For example, you can opt for nuts, fresh or naturally-dried fruits, and fresh or steamed vegetables. Lean protein such as legumes or fish can also be beneficial.
A healthy diet often requires changing your shopping and cooking habits and eating at home rather than going out to restaurants or ordering delivery.
Move More
People often associate fitness with suffering through a workout in the gym or running daily. As a result, many New Year’s health tips involve strict exercise routines that are very difficult to keep up with for an entire year.
Actually, there are significant health benefits to simply moving your body every day. This movement can be in the form of traditional exercises, such as jogging or lifting weights. However, it can also include activities such as dance, yoga, gardening, walking or hiking, swimming, or riding a bicycle. Playing a sport you enjoy can also count as healthy activity.
The key is to find activities that you can do consistently throughout the year. This can help with motivation when you do not feel like exercising. However, if you have trouble with such daily movement, you can consider hiring a personal trainer to keep you on task.
How Much Should You Move Every Day?
At least 30 minutes of moderate exercise per day can prove helpful in maintaining your current health and avoiding injuries. Exercising more than that can prove beneficial if your New Year’s resolution involves losing weight. In addition, you can add short movement sessions, such as calisthenics, stretching, or walking for a few minutes throughout each day. A study by Harvard University found that this was an effective way to increase health and avoid issues related to an inactive lifestyle.
Again, focusing your New Year’s resolutions for 2022 on short movement sessions throughout the day can be more realistic than undertaking an ambitious formal fitness program that requires you to spend time in the gym every day.
Quality Sleep
Quality sleep is an essential aspect of health for every person. However, most people overlook it. Getting a good night’s rest on a consistent basis is essential for more than one reason.
- Healthy sleep promotes a stable mood and can ensure that you maintain proper mental health and avoid or limit the effects of anxiety and depression.
- Sufficient sleep can also improve memory and brain function.
- A full night’s rest gives your immune system and metabolism time to recover from the day’s activities.
- Sleep can ensure proper circulation and improve heart health.
Though it is rarely on resolution lists, sleep should be the focus on New Year’s health tips.
What Are the Effects of Not Getting Enough Sleep?
A lack of rest can harm your immune system and make it more difficult to fight off infections. You may notice more low-grade infections, such as common colds if you do not regularly get a good night’s sleep. In addition to drowsiness during the day, sleep deprivation can also make remembering and concentrating on tasks more difficult.
Ongoing sleep issues can result in mood swings, which could develop into mental illnesses, such as clinical depression.
If you have sleep issues and would like to make improved sleep habits part of your New Year’s health resolutions, here are some tips you can try:
- Maintain a consistent schedule and sleep at the same time every night.
- Pay attention to what foods disrupt your sleep patterns, and avoid caffeine, sugary foods, and alcohol, which can make it hard to fall and stay asleep.
- Keep your phone and other screens out of your bedroom to avoid distractions as you try to fall asleep.
- Exercise daily to improve nightly rest.
- Find ways to lessen or eliminate anxiety to improve your sleep cycle, such as:
- Deep breathing techniques or mediation;
- Reading a book before bed;
- Professional help for moderate or severe anxiety.
These steps can serve as achievable New Year resolutions for health. Healthy sleeping habits can also help you achieve your resolutions in other areas. For example, a restful night can give you the energy for daily exercise and cooking healthy foods.
Get Started on Your Chosen New Year’s Health Tips Today
Everyone seems eager to share their ideas for New Year’s health tips with you. However, you need to get the insights of a medical professional who can tailor health advice to your specific needs.
A trip to Matthews Internal Medicine can help you get started on your New Year’s resolutions for health for 2022. Once you have the insights from skilled medical staff, you can create a list of realistic plans that will bring results over the course of 2022. Contact Matthews Internal Medicine today to inquire about services and make an appointment.