Are you planning to improve your health and wellness goals in 2020? If the past year hasn’t gone quite as you planned on the health and wellbeing front, the New Year is a great time to think about where you’d like to be – both this time next year and much further down the line.
Here are some tips for setting some goals that will improve your health and wellness, and some of the key areas that you might want to focus on.
Setting Health and Wellness Goals In 2020
It’s Not “All Or Nothing”
When we set health goals, it’s often on all-or-nothing basis. I find I am guilty of this when I set healthy eating goals. As soon as I break my goal I figure I will start again the next day. I might start off with the best intention but it’s sometimes unsustainable in the long term. The wisest thing to do when you break your goal is to except the slip and start straight back into your healthy eating. Another useful tip is not making your goal too strict. Allow your self that piece of dark chocolate or small treat daily. Create some wiggle room in your goal so you feel that you are keeping on track.
The same thinking also applies to exercise. If you don’t exercise much to begin with, resolving to work out every single day can be a bit too much. Maybe meeting in the middle at 3 workouts per week is something you can stick at. You don’t necessarily need to commit hours to workouts either, especially if the ones you do are pretty intensive. Schedule exercise realistically in your week and don’t beat your self up if you miss a day.
SMART Goals
SMART stands for Simple, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-bound. Keep these in mind when you’re setting health and wellness goals. Be sure to factor in your current health situation and what you might realistically be able to achieve without changing your lifestyle beyond all recognition or compromising your health.
Be Patient
You won’t see significant changes to your health and wellbeing overnight but keep reminding yourself that every little bit of progress you make will start to add up overtime.
If you don’t know where to start with your 2020 wellness goals here are a few suggestions.
2020 Goal Ideas
Sleeping Well
How much sleep do you get in the average night? If it’s not the recommended 7-9 hours, make sure one of your intentions for the new year includes getting a good night’s sleep – especially the deeper, more restorative stages of sleep. Ideally, you want to be spending around 20% of your sleep in a deeper stage of sleep but this can be much lower if you wake up a lot during the night.
Here’s a scary thought … every cell and tissue in your body benefits from adequate sleep, according to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. Cardiovascular disease, diabetes, high blood pressure and obesity are just a few of the problems that can stem from poor sleep.
Not getting enough sleep can also be a factor in weight gain. It disrupts your levels of key hormones, particularly ghrelin and leptin. These hormones control your appetite, with ghrelin telling you when you’re hungry and leptin stepping in when you’re full. When they’re imbalanced after poor sleep, it’s no great surprise that it triggers overeating..
If your sleep patterns need improvement make sure that 2020 is the year that you commit to working on this area.
Social Interaction
Do you ever feel lonely? If the answer is “yes”, it’s time to make social interaction another wellness goal for 2020.
It’s very possible to feel lonely and isolated even if you have a good support network around you. We don’t do well if we are alone too often. Our life today with all its conveniences has lead to a major increase in isolation – so loneliness is on the rise.
Loneliness is linked to higher levels of inflammation that can then pave the way for health problems. To stop loneliness being a problem for you, make a pact with yourself to get out and meet new people as part of your 2020 wellness goals. Be brave. This could involve signing up for a new fitness class or joining a book group just look for new opportunities to create social interaction.
Gratitude
You might have heard of gratitude as a major trend in self-care but you may be less aware of the potential health benefits. According to research from UC Davis, people who express gratitude on a regular basis are happier and have less physical health problems. It may even be able to reduce cortisol levels and biomarkers of inflammation.
Want some of this for yourself? Spend a few minutes every day thinking about things that have made you grateful or thankful. Keeping a gratitude diary has been shown to reduce perceived stress too. Practicing gratitude as one of your big health and wellness goals for 2020 could improve both your physical and mental wellbeing.
Random acts of kindness
Performing random acts of kindness for other people is another great health and wellness goal for 2020, especially if you’re committed to improving your happiness.
Here’s a few of the mental and physical benefits to wet your appetite:
According to studies, kindness can boost your mood, bring your stress levels down and improve your self esteem. And all of that has got to be a good thing for your emotional wellbeing even when we ourselves may not be in the best place!
Experts think that there may be physical benefits to kindness too. One of these is the release of a chemical called oxytocin. This triggers production of nitric oxide, which helps to lower blood pressure.
These are just the benefits for you but it’s also worth thinking about how it makes the recipients feel. If they’re lonely or in a bad place emotionally, being on the receiving end of an act of kindness can make a real difference to their mood and wellbeing – sometimes even more if it seems totally random.
Here are just a few suggestions of some health and wellness goals that you can work on for 2020. If you would like more positive ways to work towards your health and wellness goals for the new year or would like a more 1:1 approach to optimising your wellness check out my Discover Wellness Program with optional coaching packages.
