Want to keep your resolution this year? Get a plan.

Happy 2013!  With the New Year upon us, many of us choose to make resolutions of one form or another. According to Reuters, 87% of Americans will make resolutions for 2013.  Often, resolutions focus on improving some aspect of our health, our relationships, or our finances. Some examples: "This year, I am finally going to lose weight;" "I resolve to be more patient with my children;" "I will stop spending so much."

Despite our good intentions, the vast majority of us will not meet our resolutions. According to some research, fewer than 1 in 10 of us will succeed over time. 

Why are we so bad at keeping our resolutions? After all, we really want to lose weight, be less stressed, or whatever else we have promised ourselves.  In a nutshell, it's because we don't have a real plan.  Many of us fail to define what we really want to accomplish in clear, measurable terms.  On top of this, most of us don't know how we will get there.  We haven't thought about how we will deal with challenges or barriers to meeting our goals, or on the other hand, how we can reorganize things in our lives to make it easier to keep our resolutions.

Fear not: help is available. One of the best sources for clear, concise guidance is a book written by my colleagues, Sheri Pruitt and Josh Klapow. Living SMART: Five Essential Skills to Change Your Health Habits Forever is focused on health behavior like losing weight, or stopping smoking. But its core recommendations can be applied to any type of resolution that involves changing what you do on a daily basis.  

Living SMART uses the acronym S-M-A-R-T to describe the skills needed for success. I have taken the liberty of summarizing each of the skills below.

Setting a goal involves translating a general health goal to a target behavior.  For example, “I need to relax” could be translated into “I will practice relaxation exercises for 10 minutes, three times per day, and five days per week.”  One key aspect of goal setting, according to this approach, is to start with a target that is small and achievable, and then build slowly on success.

Monitoring progress is perhaps the most overlooked component of success. Self-monitoring, using a simple chart, can be used to track virtually anything you do, including exercising, eating, spending money, etc. Research has shown that self-monitoring has an impact, in and of itself, on the target action.  Watching progress visually on a chart becomes a type of reward in itself.

Arranging the environment for success means modifying the home or work environment to encourage new habits that you want to cultivate, and/or to discourage old habits that you want to decrease or eliminate altogether. For example, if you want to stop drinking sodas, remove these drinks from the home refrigerator and storage pantries. Or alternatively, if you want to walk more frequently, place walking shoes at the front door as a reminder. The possibilities for arranging the environment are almost endless and require simply thinking about ways in which your desired actions can be prompted while undesired actions can be made more difficult.

Recruiting a support team involves seeking the positive influence of family, friends, and others to help meet your goals. Identify buddies or peers, meaning people who who want to achieve similar goals, to provide camaraderie along the way. Supporters, meaning people who are not necessarily making changes themselves but who agree to support your efforts, also can be helpful.

Treating oneself involves setting rewards for meeting your desired goals. Rewards should be decided in advance, and should occur frequently at the beginning. They don’t need to be large or expensive -  bubble baths or watching a favorite show are examples of small treats that can be used. Over time, feelings of accomplishment and satisfaction often become rewarding in themselves.

This is a quick summary only.  Sheri and Josh's book goes into much greater detail about each of these skills and how to apply them.  I encourage you to read it in order to learn more about these concepts. 

The research is clear: if you want to keep your resolution, you need a real plan. Your plan must define your target behavior in clear terms, include how you will change your surroundings to encourage your resolution, involve the support of others, allow you to self-monitor your progress, and reward your actions along the way.
  

Yoga: what's behind the craze?

These days, it seems like everyone is doing yoga.  In my home city, Seattle, yoga classes can be found just about everywhere: gyms, workplaces, neighborhood community centers, and nursing homes.  Anyone with an Internet connection can access hundreds of free, full-length yoga classes via YouTube or iTunes.

What is behind this craze?  In reality, yoga is far from a trend: yoga originated in India and has been practiced in different forms for thousands of years.  That being said, it is true that yoga has has gained tremendous popularity in the USA and other Western countries over the past 10 to 20 years.

In the United States today, 'yoga' typically refers to some form of hatha yoga, which uses physical poses, or asanas, combined with breathing techniques meditation to achieve better health. Subtypes of hatha yoga that you might see advertised include Bikram, Baptiste, and Vinyasa yoga, to name but a few.  All are variations of the hatha approach.

Perhaps the best way to understand yoga’s popularity is to go right to someone who practices it. Full disclosure: I started practicing yoga about seven years ago. At the time, I chose to enroll in a worksite yoga class because it was the only fitness class that fit my schedule.   When I started, I couldn't touch my toes and I didn't know the difference between a downward facing dog and an upward facing dog.  It took me awhile to touch my toes (and I am still learning the names of all the poses), but I quickly found that yoga made me feel great.  I kept coming back for more.  And the more I practiced, the greater the benefits I experienced.  

Anyone who has regularly practiced yoga can attest to its positive impact on muscle strength, flexibility and balance.  According to the National Institutes for Health, current research also suggests that yoga reduces certain types of pain, improves quality of life; reduces stress; lowers heart rate and blood pressure; and helps relieve anxiety, depression, and insomnia.

Ready to get started? If you a beginner, try to find an instructor (as opposed to watching a video or reading a book).  A qualified yoga teacher will teach you proper alignment and correct your positioning as needed.  He or she also will teach you modifications for different poses if you have physical limitations or if you are at risk for an injury.  Once you learn the basics, you can practice on your own (although many elect to continue with a teacher for at least some of their practices).

Anyone can practice yoga - regardless of age or level of physical disability.  But pay attention to how you feel during your practices and never push beyond your edge.  A key principle of yoga is to notice and respect your limitations.  If you follow these suggestions, you will most likely find that you want to continue yoga because you it helps you feel so great.