image by: Peter Lee

HWN Suggests

How to trick your brain into keeping a New Year’s resolution

Getting fit and losing weight are two of the most common New Year’s resolutions, and both depend on making daily changes to your life. That means interrupting your normal habits and exchanging them for new ones. Unfortunately, humans are terrible at doing both of those things. Ironically, though, it’s hard to change habits precisely because our brains are so good at becoming habituated. We’re hardwired to automate processes. It’s how you can find yourself at work without having to think about getting there, or why you reach for the patch of wall where the light switch is in your own bathroom when you stumble into a hotel’s commode. It’s also why most new diets and exercise plans fail. Once…

read full article

Featured

 How Did the Tradition of New Year's Resolutions Start?

From the Babylonians who resolved to return borrowed farm equipment to medieval knights who would renew their vow to chivalry, New Year’s resolutions are nothing new.

 How to make better New Year's resolutions

New year, new you, but perhaps you've broken one or two of your News Year's resolution already? If so, you're not alone, because on average 80% of resolutions fail. So, how can we get better at making and sticking to our goals?

 New Year’s Resolutions for Planet Earth

One crisis in particular, to direct the second impossible question to, is climate change; a global challenge which can sometimes feel insurmountable. However, rather than losing hope, giving up, or laying blame, the global spotlight should instead be redirected onto solutions; whatever shape, size or sentiment they may behold, climate solutions should be the hopeful sunlight on the horizon that we are all focused on reaching. Such ambitions though, can only be achieved if everyone on the planet works together, across borders, to pave a better path forwards to get us there. At the end of the day, Earth as a whole is the sum of many smaller working parts, therefore both the individual as well as the international community will need to be equipped with the right mindset and tools to succeed in preserving it.

Articles of Interest

New Year Resolutions: Are You In or Out?

Resolutions are popular because everyone feels they could use a little improvement - Marilu Henner

New Year’s Resolutions Again? Set Yourself Up For Success This Time

Once you pick your top priority area, then within that area pick one specific focus point to work on.

New Year’s Resolutions Are A Waste Of Time

Resolutions are also made worse by the fact that many of us try to go it alone. It’s in their very nature — a resolution is all about “Me”: “I’m going to get more exercise” or “I’m going to cut back on heroine sandwiches”. You don’t make a resolution to help others, because the whole idea is that you are going to improve yourself.

The history of setting new years resolutions dates back over 4,000 years

Every New Year, thousands of people around the world celebrate by making a resolution or a wish. From eating grapes to jumping waves and burning wish papers, there are lots of different ways to do it. So how did it all begin? We look at the history of New Year’s resolutions and how different countries make their resolutions today.

A guide to New Year’s resolutions that are actually meaningful

New Year’s resolutions are typically a self-centered affair. We promise to eat more vegetables; to exercise more; to read every New Yorker issue cover-to-cover, instead of letting them pile up on the coffee table. I generally make the same New Year’s resolution every year: eat better. My diet of kale salad and baked salmon usually sticks for about six months. Then, like clockwork, I fall off the wagon come June or July.

A new year's resolution for the planet

For me, the promises I make to myself in the hopeful light of the turning of the clock last only a few weeks, and then I end up reverting toward the same comfortable, survival-mode routine. Maybe a few things change here and there. I tinker around the edges. But nothing spectacularly transformative. And maybe, just maybe, that is okay. This is who I am. These are my habits. My flaws. My warts. My joys. My life. Call it my age, but I guess I am a little less willing to set myself up for failure. Or maybe, I am just letting go.

A scientific guide to the resolutions that are really worth the effort

Being a better you needn't be as hard as you think. From more sleep, to snacking smarter and ditching the gym - we put 10 New Year's resolutions to the test

Clinicians’ new year’s resolutions: More talk with patients, more time in nature

Giving patients more "nature prescriptions" is among the new year's resolutions from clinicians around the country.

Don’t ask how to be more productive next year. Ask why you want to be

Why is it so hard to maintain perspective? What is that broken pathway in our brain that links checking off a to-do list item to the fear of death?

Easy eco-friendly New Year's resolutions

If you're the type to set resolutions in the new year, why not add some eco-friendly ones to the list and help save the planet? We’ve put together some resolutions that anyone can do.

Eco-friendly New Year’s Resolution Ideas

Given the current state of our environment, where floods, cyclones, wildfires, and high temperatures have become a norm. And where experts are increasingly warning us to control our climate-damaging actions. It is time that all of us, in our own little way, contribute to the Planet’s betterment.

For Happiness in the New Year, Stop Overdoing Everything

Overachieving and overthinking are ways we try to feel more secure, but they can seriously hurt our mental and physical health.

Forget your gym subscription—be more like the Sardinians

Gym memberships spike in January. We then spend months wasting money on them and feeling guilty. Gold’s Gym, a fitness chain, even uses falling check-in data to identify the day when resolutions fail. They call it the Fitness Cliff—and it’s normally sometime in early February. The problems with joining a gym as a New Year’s resolution are manifold. Changing and forming habits is hard to maintain when the new habit is a radical departure from your old ways.

Have you made your New Year's climate resolution yet?

Two words - food waste. Up to 40% of food gets wasted in the U.S. And wasted food in a landfill releases methane, which is this really potent, planet-heating gas. So one New Year's resolution is to use the food we buy. For marine biologist and climate policy adviser Ayana Johnson, she starts in the back of her refrigerator.

Here are my New Year’s resolutions. Some of them apply to medicine as well

I’ve decided to say “no” more often. I’ve decided to examine the bad habits and the behaviors that cost me time but give me little in return. I’ve decided to make mindfulness a continuous practice. And I want to read more, so that I can further learn about empathy and understanding. And I’m doing all this so that I can continue to fight for equality, in and out of the hospital halls.

Here's to a Hangover-Free New Year

Bringing in the New Year with a hangover doesn't have to be an annual event. So what do celebrities do when they want to indulge?

How To Actually Keep Your New Year Resolutions

Be specific about the actions you'll take, not just the end you want to achieve.

How to Be Healthier, Happier and More Productive: It’s All in the Timing

You’re probably getting ready to make a few New Year’s resolutions... But if you’re like most people—and social science suggests that you and I are like most people—you’ve neglected a question that could help you actually stick to those resolutions: “When?”

How to Make (and Keep) a New Year's Resolution

You’ll give yourself your best shot at success if you set a goal that’s doable — and meaningful too.

How To Make (And Keep) An Earth-First New Years Resolution

Learn the key to making sustainable resolutions that will add up to real change for you and the planet...

How To Make A New Year's Resolution

2020 has been a disaster for meeting new people, which is why Per Carlbring's New Year's resolution is to spend next year trying to connect with someone new every day. Carlbring, a professor who heads Stockholm University's Department of Psychology, knows a thing or two about making a New Year's resolution stick. He and his colleagues recently published a peer-reviewed study on the topic.

How to Make Your New Year’s Resolutions Stick

Charles Duhigg on the science of setting goals and achieving them.

How to set New Year’s resolutions that help the environment

Is your New Year's resolution to be more environmentally conscious but you don’t know where to start? We’ve got you covered

How to stick to your New Year's resolution, with science

The secret to keeping a New Year’s resolution is one simple phrase.

I Did All Your New Year's Resolutions

The new year has shined a light upon me and burned the crust from my eyes to allow me to see the errors of my ways. You see, I was once like you. I was once a barrel full of piss and pizza, stressed cork struggling to contain the putrescent goo within. I was once tired, suppressing vomit in the shower, crying black red-wine tears—but I have left that life behind. I am writing this at the end of a perfect day. My eyes are shining a bright white light, one of completion and joy. I have changed for the better, friends. I am cleansed.

It’s the Most Inadequate Time of the Year

New Year’s resolutions are the perfect opportunity for consumer brands to remind you of all the ways you could be better.

My New Year’s road resolutions: First up, finally understand my car

A new year unfolds before us. The past is past and beckons us to turn hopeful faces toward the eternal promise of the future. For many of us that means making a pledge to be better. We make resolutions.

New Year's Resolutions Are Predictions About the Future

New Year’s resolutions are predictions about the future. They are usually aspirational. And they are almost always deceptive. Like so many people, I did not end up doing what I said I would. And here’s the thing: I failed at the easiest prediction possible—me predicting me, just a few weeks into the future.

New Year's Resolutions Don't Last. Try This Instead.

Every year around this time, some of us approach the turning of the calendar the way Charlie Brown approaches the football in the classic Peanuts cartoon. Even though Lucy has previously fooled him and whisked the ball away at the last moment every time, he is hopeful that this time will be different. Similarly, in spite of the very mixed track record of New Year’s resolutions, we make them again and again, somehow hoping this time will be different. This year, let us not fool ourselves again.

New Year's Resolutions to Change the World

Luckily, progress has already started across the world. In this blog post, we share the stories of local changemakers who have taken ownership of the SDGs. They are members of the +SocialGood community, a global network united around a shared vision for a better world by 2030.

New Year's Resolutions You'll Actually Keep, According to Your Sign

If you don't check your sign's compatibility with your New Year's resolution, why even bother?

New Year's resolutions: How do you make one you will keep?

Lose weight, exercise more, quit smoking, learn a language - we can all reel off a list of typical resolutions made and broken. But BBC Reality Check wanted to know if there are certain resolutions you're more likely to keep?

New Year’s Resolutions for the Environment

There may be some grand, sacrificial, heroic answer, but the best answers I know are almost trivial. Environmental problems are caused by billions of small, unthinking actions. They’ll be cured by billions of small, sensible actions, simple substitutions of environmentally conscious habits for thoughtless and wasteful ones.

New Year’s Resolutions for the Planet

If you’re thinking of making a “green” New Year’s resolution, here are a few ideas...

New Year’s Resolutions That Will Actually Lead to Happiness

Set goals to improve your well-being—not your wallet or your waistline

New Year’s resolutions: Who makes them and why

Young adults are most likely to make New Year’s resolutions...

Our Tech Resolutions...

When we think about New Year’s resolutions, we typically focus on tangible life improvements like trying to lose weight, eat healthier, or travel more. But technology has become such an integral part of our existence that it, too, can require some work.

Resolutions for a New Year and a Healthier Planet

The New Year is just around the corner and that means one thing…resolutions! If you’re like most people, you probably can’t remember what your resolutions were last year. (Don’t worry, we can’t remember ours either.)

Should You Even Bother with New Year’s Resolutions This Year?

Setting resolutions often feels like a pointless exercise — something we do at the beginning of each year only to then feel guilty by February. The pandemic has only made the practice feel more helpless. Why even attempt to set resolutions when you have no idea what will transpire in the coming months? The author explains why setting an intention for yourself is still a good idea and offers practical tips on how to make your resolutions actually stick.

Sick of Failing at Your New Year’s Resolutions? There Is a Better Way

Psychologists who study self-control have advice about how best to stick to our goals. The worst approaches involve what they call “response modulation”—otherwise known as white-knuckling it as you stare down temptation. Good old will power. The ancient Greeks knew that this was a terrible strategy, as evidenced by their myths. As Odysseus approached the Sirens, whose songs would lure men to their deaths, he plugged the ears of his crew and had himself bound to the mast of his ship.

The Dry January Effect

Now that the British fad is taking hold in the U.S., research shows that losing booze for a month has several health benefits—sometimes months later.

The Only Way to Keep Your Resolutions

Unfortunately, the problem of New Year’s resolutions is, in a way, the problem of life itself. Our tendency to be shortsighted — to value the pleasures of the present more than the satisfactions of the future — comes at a considerable cost.

The science of actually keeping your New Year's resolutions

I don't know you, and you don't know me, but I am going to make a guess we have at least two things in common: we have made a New Year's resolution at some point. And we have broken a New Year's resolution at some point.

This Year, Try Downsizing Your Resolutions

2020 was a rough one. Here’s how to make goals for 2021 that feel both satisfying and doable.

Which New Year’s Resolutions Are Most Likely to Stick?

Grandiose goals and vague promises don’t work, and neither does beating up on yourself for slip-ups.

Why We Think We Can Keep Those New Year's Resolutions

When we think about taking action sometime in the future, we tend to neglect the constraints we’ll face when the future actually arrives.

Why your brain makes New Year's resolutions impossible to keep

And what you can do about it.

Why Your New Year’s Resolutions Are Doomed to Fail

New year, new you? Not likely. We asked life coaches why most of us abandon our resolutions, and if there's anything you can do about it.

‘Drained and wary of the future’: why you might feel different about New Year’s resolutions this year

COVID-19 has left most of us drained and wary of the future. Many people believed the pandemic would end in 2020, but 2021 brought more infection, lockdowns and restrictions.

Resources

Eight apps to make your New Year resolutions stick

And if you vowed to use your phone less, just cut back on other apps, not these.

10 New Year's Resolutions Doctors Actually Want You to Make

Each year, Americans’ most popular New Year’s resolutions are more or less the same: get healthy, get organized, save money. But doctors at the American Medical Association (AMA) have some more specific thoughts in mind...

5 Ways to Actually Keep Those Resolutions

It’s that time again. Resolutions are made, gyms grow crowded, and people toast to a healthier New Year over the latest juice cleanse. It’s easy to commit during the glow of the holidays but then lose steam in the months that follow. Set yourself up for success this year and give your willpower the boost it needs with the help of five simple tips that fit into your regular routine and stick around past February.

9 Sustainable New Years Resolutions

When the clock strikes 12:01 on New Years Eve, you'll still be the exact same person that you were before, but there's a certain transformative energy imbued into this time of transition. It's a great opportunity to take stock of your daily habits, and to think about how you can be more sustainable in your day to day life.

9 tips to give yourself the best shot at sticking to new year’s resolutions

Living though difficult and stressful times can pave the way for a greater appreciation for life, deeper self-understanding, and increased personal resilience (which means being able to bounce back quicker). When setting resolutions, it’s important they’re linked to meaningful goals and values that can sustain motivation.

9 ways to get healthier in 2024 without trying very hard

Sometimes trying to be healthy feels like just another item on your endless, exhausting to-do list. Here on NPR's health team, we don't want to add to anyone's stress. The good news is that it doesn't take great feats of fitness or a heroic commitment to good habits to stay well. Often small changes can make a significant difference.

9 Sneaky Ways to Stick to Your New Year's Resolutions

The best resolutions are the ones you don't have to remember to keep.

10 No-Brainer New Year's Resolutions You Should Actually Try

This is for everyone who breaks their resolutions one week in.

12 New Year’s Resolutions You Can Start Right Now

Lose weight, run your first race, stay consistent: Here’s how to get started right now on your big goals for the new year.

50 New Year's Resolution Ideas And How To Achieve Each Of Them

What follows is a list of 50 common New Year’s resolutions with a piece of advice and plenty of links to useful articles that deal with the issue in greater detail. If you are looking for effective ways of changing your life for the better, then you’ll be sure to find tons of useful information here.

Eight New Year’s resolutions to help fight climate change

Even some small easy tasks can make a big impact when becoming long-term practices. The following are eight ideas for green changes you and your family can resolve to undertake this year to help make a big difference for Planet Earth.

Rules for resolutions: 7 ways to make commitments you’ll keep

It’s that time of year when people make their New Year’s resolutions—indeed, 93% of people set them, according to the American Psychological Association. The most common resolutions are related to losing weight, eating healthier, exercising regularly and saving money. However, research shows that 45% of people fail to keep their resolutions by February...