You can almost hear the audible sigh of relief as we hit the end of January and we can finally pop the cork on ‘Dry Jan’, the Krispy Creme donuts start making their way back into the staff room again and those gym membership cards have perhaps already turned into ice scrapers as you try to convince yourself is was all a bad idea anyway.
But what lessons can we learn from the coldest, darkest, loooongest month of the year?
Well....you see the very fact that you either joined the gym, battled your way through ‘Dry Jan’, tried a detox or attempted Vegan-uary was an admittance on your part that something needed to change. Be it you needed to do more exercise, drink less alcohol or eat more plant based foods one way or another you had recognised the need to make a change and whilst the rest of the world was attempting change well why the hell not join them.
But as the title of this article suggests, ‘your health is for life not just for January’ so why stop there?
Now I’m not talking about cutting alcohol out altogether or only eating cabbage soup for the rest of the year but instead of retreating back into your old lifestyle habits, you know, the ones you wanted to change just 4/5weeks ago why not play the long game and adapt those improved healthy lifestyle choices to help you create longer lasting change.
For instance if alcohol is your thing why not commit to avoiding it throughout the week and enjoying your tipple just over the weekend instead, I could almost guarantee this would help to improve both your sleep and your cognitive function in turn and who knows you may even be on for that promotion come the end of the year.
Or maybe turning Vegan wasn’t for you but could you perhaps creep an extra portion of vegetables onto your plate with each evening meal and/or commit to a having 1-2 plant based meals per week. Or simply attempt to try one new vegetable each week, you never know you might discover a new fave.
“...adapt those improved healthy lifestyle choices to help you create longer lasting change.”
And then of course there’s exercise...we all know we should be doing more but the very fact that Kim
and the girls go to the gym every night after work and Dave puts his short shorts on at lunch time to go for a run only puts you off even further. If the gym is your thing then great keep up the good work but if the gym isn’t your thing then that’s okay too but you must find other ways throughout your day/week to get that ‘workout’ in. So that lift is out of bounds, walk the long way around to the coffee shop in the morning and choose the furthest spot you can when you go to the supermarket.
Whatever change you made or attempted to make throughout January I would imagine you started with all good intention and whilst we’re all guilty of asking a little too much of ourselves with our new years resolutions it’s important that we don’t lose the sentiment, because remember your health is for life...not just for January.