“New Year’s resolutions are a bit like babies: They’re fun to make but extremely difficult to maintain,” quips health writer Alyssa Sparacino in a recent Health.com article about—you guessed it—the healthiest New Year’s resolutions.
What topped the list?
Drum roll please…
- Losing weight
- Staying in touch with old friends and family
- Quitting smoking
- Saving money
- Cutting stress
- Volunteering more
- Going back to school
- Cutting back on alcohol
- Getting more sleep
- Traveling more
Don’t know about you, but we’re feeling stressed just reading that list! While worthy goals, it’s all too easy and human to let the best of resolutions slip away when noble intentions crash up against daily obligations and unexpected challenges. Maybe that’s why fewer than half of us are still on point with our resolutions just six months after we drain that last champagne cocktail on New Year’s Eve.
So why not get real this new year?
What if you just found ways to stand up and move a little more every day? Prevention magazine (Jan. 2019, “Stand Up For Your Life”) reported on a study from King’s College London that showed “that people who targeted their sitting time with a specific strategy—say, switching to a standing desk or walking to the water cooler more often—were more effective in reducing their sedentariness (static behaviors) than those who focused on adding more exercise sessions into their days.”
Why mix in movement instead of, say, adding a Spin class to your life?
“One study has shown that adding two minutes more walking to each hour can decrease a person’s risk of dying by 33 percent,” says Prevention. If you need more motivation to incorporate regular non-intensive movement into your daily life, check out the numerous convincing and credible independent studies on our website.
Our resolution recommendation for you:
Make 2019 the year you add manageable movement to your everyday work and home routines.
You may not make the top ten list for most ambitious resolutions, but you just might end up a whole lot healthier this time next year.
