Healthy New Year’s Resolutions for 2017

The end of another year has come, and amidst all the hustle and bustle of Christmas and New Year’s festivities, it’s also a time of reflection and planning for the next year, and also about time to start jotting down a few New Year’s resolutions for 2017 that you can actually stick to, and not forget about come mid to end of January!

The following quote by English poet Edith Lovejoy Pierce perfectly encapsulates the spirit of New Year’s: “We will open the book. Its pages are blank.  We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called opportunity and its first chapter is New Year’s Day.” To help you with your first chapter of 2017 so to speak, Pacific Prime Singapore has compiled the following top healthy New Year’s resolutions to stick to in 2017.

Setting New Year’s resolutions that stick

So maybe you want to lose weight, or start saving money. It’s common to see a surge in gym memberships come January as every treadmill in the country becomes taken up, and then see gym-goer numbers decrease in February, and even more so in March. This is not surprising, especially considering the fact that just 8% of people stick to their New Year’s resolutions.

But here’s what you can do: Questolutions. A portmanteau of the words ‘question’ and ‘resolution’, questolutions refers to using questions in your list of resolutions to make them more motivating, as they inspire thoughts of more intrinsically motivated reasons to pursue a goal. For example, instead of saying: ‘I want to exercise more’, it can be a lot more effective to ask yourself: ‘In what ways can I exercise more?’.

1. In what ways can I exercise more?

Regular exercise helps reduce the risk of a myriad of chronic diseases such as high blood pressure and heart conditions, and also helps burn calories, improve muscle strength, increase your endurance, and boost your mood by releasing happy hormones called endorphins. The trouble here is that, many people find exercise such as running or going to the gym fairly tedious, but there are ways of making sure that you exercise more.

A key way in ensuring that you exercise more is by doing exercise that you actually enjoy. Some of the following types of exercise are fun and also helps you keep fit:

• Trampolining: Trampolining is great fun and it’s not just for kids! It helps improve balance and coordination, build muscle and lose fat. Here are the top 5 trampoline parks to check out in Singapore.

• Rock climbing: Rock climbing is both challenging and rewarding. Did you know that one session can burn 500-900 calories per hour? It also helps with improving your flexibility and strengthening your muscles!

• Dancing: How about joining a dance class so you can start busting your moves? Some of the most popular types of dance include hip-hop, jazz, and tap dancing. It’s a great way to make new friends, and also helps improve your coordination and can be great for improving your confidence too.

• Martial arts: Martial arts such as Taekwondo, Judo, and Karate are great for improving cardiovascular health, and also helps with boosting your reflexes.

2. How do I find time to prepare more home cooked meals?

It goes without saying that eating home cooked meals more often is much healthier than eating take out meals or eating at a restaurant, as the latter will usually be packed full of calories, fat, sugar, and salt, meaning a higher risk of heart disease, obesity, and diabetes. Food-borne illnesses such as gastroenteritis contracted in restaurants often make news headlines too, so eating at home can actually lower your chances of exposure to unsanitary food. 2016 has seen several food poisoning cases in Singapore, including a case that was linked to durian pastries.

It is admittedly difficult to find time for cooking meals at home, especially for those of you with busy work schedules. To increase your intake of home cooked meals, try a potluck party at home with your friends, and also aim to prepare your meals on Sunday so that you can pack them in your fridge for the week ahead.

3. How can I find ways of coping with stress?

Mental health is equally important! It’s normal to feel stressed once in awhile, but if you’re overly stressed, you can actually put yourself at risk of developing depression and other psychiatric illnesses. To cope with stress, here are a few things you can do:

• Breathing: This method may seem rudimentary, but deep breathing can really help you deal with stress and is an amazing technique for stimulating relaxation and relieving tension.

• Drink less caffeine: If you drink coffee, try limiting yourself to 1 to 2 cups per day. While it does make you feel more awake, caffeine can actually make you feel more anxious, nervous, and irritable.

• Meditation: Meditation really does work! Meditation has been scientifically proven to reduce anxiety, worry and depression. It’s also been proven to improve your mood, emotional intelligence, and mental focus.

4. Am I covered by health insurance?

Having health insurance on its own doesn’t directly make you healthier, but it can offer a range of preventative benefits such as coverage for regular checkups that could really make the difference between treating an illness that has been detected early on as opposed to a life-threatening disease.

If you’d like to have a chat about anything related to health or insurance (or both), feel free to contact our team of insurance advisors today!

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Jantra Jacobs

Senior Copywriter at Pacific Prime Singapore

Jantra Jacobs is a Senior Copywriter Pacific Prime with over 10 years of writing and editing experience. She writes and edits a diverse variety of online and offline copy, including sales and marketing materials ranging from articles and advertising copy to reports, guides, RFPs, and more.

Jantra curates and reports on the results of Pacific Prime’s monthly newsletters, as well as manages Pacific Prime’s Deputy Global CEO’s LinkedIn posts. Complemented by her background in business writing, Jantra’s passion for health, insurance, and employee benefits helps her create engaging content - no matter how complex the subject is.

Growing up as a third-culture kid has given her a multicultural perspective that helps her relate to expats and their families while 8 years of working remotely have given her unique insight into hybrid work arrangements and enthusiasm for employee benefits.

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