Flip the Switch on New Year’s Resolutions: Use Brain Science for Long-lasting Healthier Behavior

January 1, 2021

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It is that time of year again where many will pledge to give up a bad habit or achieve a new goal in the new year. The problem with New Year’s resolutions is that they don’t work.

Despite the challenges faced in 2020 with the coronavirus pandemic, one survey from Finder.com found many are looking to 2021 with more optimism – 74% intend to make a New Year’s resolution which is an increase of 15% over last year. At the top of the survey’s resolution list are health-related goals.1 Similarly, The Monday Campaigns found that, despite difficulties maintaining resolutions in 2020, this New Year more individuals plan to set resolutions for better health.2 While research by University of Scranton psychology professor, John Norcross,has found less than 10% of New Year’s resolutions are actually achieved, behavioral psychologists have found ways to turn “on” your brain’s neurotransmitters for lasting achievements.3

How Science Can Help You Keep Your New Year’s Resolution

First of all, don’t call it a resolution. While “resolution” is a powerful word, it is also lofty and daunting which is why it ultimately appears unachievable. Instead, think of your goal as a fresh beginning and a promise you make to yourself to keep for the rest of your life.

Next, we offer up two scientifically proven theories and methods to help you feel more successful in creating and keeping your promise.

Step 1: Go with the flow

Very often, we set health goals that we believe we should do rather than what we want to do. When you eliminate the passion and purpose in achieving something new, you create unforeseen barriers in keeping that promise. We love the positivity and happiness theory of renowned psychology researcher Mihaly Csikzentmihalyi (pronounced ME-high Cheeks-send-ME-high). 

What Csikzentmihalyi’s studies are centered around is his “Flow Theory” that have shown when you combine effort + enjoyment + energy you reach a sense of optimal happiness and achievement. He advocates that flow is not about relaxation or passivity which can lead to boredom, nor are they about creating too much challenge that brings on more stress. Instead, he says it is about finding that combination of passion and purpose that bring happiness with achievement. For professional athletes, it is similar to being “in the zone.”

And we know that not all healthy behavior is tied to exercise and diet. Psychological health is just as important for overall physical health as working out or adopting a vegan diet. For instance, maybe you have wanted to learn a new language or how to play a musical instrument. For others it may be writing your memoirs or returning to a favorite activity such as playing tennis or dancing. When you become a caregiver, all these dreams float away because you tell yourself you do not have time – it will have to wait. According to Csikzentmihalyi this means putting off your happiness into a distant future and that one act can then impact your overall happiness and more importantly, your health.

“People who learn to control inner experience will be able to determine the quality of their lives, which is as close as any of us can come to being happy,” Csikzentmihalyi has written in his research findings.

We recommend looking at your life in three sections: self, family, work. For caregivers, some or most days one or two of these –probably work and family –will get more attention. But if you look at your three sections across the timeline of one week, it becomes a weekly reminder to bring yourself back into balance by planning some time to focus more on self and figuring out how to achieve your flow.

Step 2: Bigger is not better – think small!

Aristotle said it best, “We are what we repeatedly do.”

Behavioral science researchers such as B.J. Fogg and Charles Duhigg advocate for doing little things that lead to larger goals that they actually become habits.  

The secret is in finding what Duhigg calls the Habit Loop. It starts with a cue that leads to a routine that ultimately ends in a reward. Repeating this Habit Loop actually is linked to neuroscience where the healthy act becomes automatic rather than a choice similar to how we brush our teeth every day. It is like creating a smart on/off switch in your brain.

Fogg advises that scaling up to your goal by starting with easy, fast, daily activity works best. For instance, Fogg talks about wanting to exercise more but never getting to a gym or even working out in his house because of the numerous barriers such as finding at least 30-60 minutes, putting on workout clothes, showering afterward, etc. Instead, he took a daily habit (going to the bathroom and washing his hands) and that was his cue to go to an empty wall in his house and do two wall push-ups. That’s it, 10 seconds tops. But each time he would make it happen. After a few weeks, he added a few more push-ups each time so that over the course of a year he was doing at least 50 push-ups a day.

This is also similar to what Herbert Benson who wrote the “Relaxation Response” in the 1970s advised. He said 20 minutes of mindful meditation a day could cure asthma, angina, arthritis and other health ailments. But if 20 minutes seems too big a chunk of time, break it in half – 10 minutes in the morning, 10 in the evening or even further – 5 minutes each at breakfast, lunch, dinner and bedtime.

These two secret ingredients to successful health behavior change – flow as motivation and habits as easy automated activity – can lead to success in better caregiver health and happiness.

Also check out the science behind Monday routines in our Caregiver Monday campaign and why our Tool Kit offers these easy, fast practices to help you achieve your self-care goals.

References:

1 Choi, Catherine (December 4, 2020). New Year’s resolution statistics. Finder.com survey, Los Angeles, California. (2020). Retrieved from: https://www.google.com/search?q=finder.com+is+based+where&oq=finder.com+is+based+where&aqs=chrome..69i57.7571j1j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

2 Researchscape International (November, 2020). Nationally representative survey of 1,063 U.S. adults Researchscape International conducted November 2020, Sarasota, Fla.

3 Norcross, J. C., & Vangarelli, D. J. (1988). The resolution solution: longitudinal examination of New Year’s change attempts. Journal of substance abuse1(2), 127–134. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0899-3289(88)80016-6

©2020 Sherri Snelling

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