New Year – New Habits
It’s 2026, which seems to be a year that is very far in the future and then I realize it’s now. How in the world did I get this old and this broken? In my mind I’m 40 years old but if I were 40 and woke up feeling this way, I’d call 911. When you get this old and feel this way most of us search for ways to feel better and stay active. The start of the new year is the usual time for resolutions, time to set goals, which usually require establishing new habits. I’ve noticed that many new year’s resolutions are centered on stopping bad habits like smoking, drinking, and laying immobile for long periods of time. There’s no doubt that stopping any one of these habits will pay huge dividends in terms of your health and even in the length of your life, but resolutions often entail starting a good habit. There’s the tough part of accomplishing your resolution, successfully establishing a good habit . . . because it’s difficult.
Experts tell us it takes an average of 66 days to establish a new good habit (my experience is it takes much less to start a new bad habit). They also tell us there are three things that help us succeed.
1. Cue → something that triggers the behavior. A new year’s resolution is a good cue.
2. Routine → the action. Fit it in somewhere so that there’s a void in your normal routine if you don’t include your new action.
3. Reward → the positive feeling that reinforces it. There’s nothing like a reward to look forward to, although consuming a hot fudge sundae is not a good reward if you’re trying to lose weight.
I’ve also found that if you tell someone close to you about your goal it will also help you stay with it. As crazy as it seems, it’s sometimes harder to disappoint someone else than it is to disappoint yourself.
So, with my expert advice you’re now ready to finally improve some aspects of your health in 2026. As usual I’ll link you up with some tools to help you improve various areas of your health. I’ve taken these from different parts of the National Institute of Health website:
· Your Surroundings – As we get older, we are more prone to get injured as we interact with our surroundings. That’s why your doctor or their assistant asks you if you’ve fallen more than twice in the last few months.
· Your Feelings – The way you deal with change and loss in your life can have a big impact on your health.
· Your Body – It’s no secret that building up your core and cardiovascular endurance are key to improving your bodies health.
· Your Relationship – It’s easy as you grow older to retreat into your own world. It’s not the way to stay healthy. Interacting with those around you will help you maintain this outward looking attitude.
· Your Disease Defense – Much has been said about disease prevention, everything from the positive Make America Healthy Again to the negative of downplaying the importance of vaccinations. There are many steps you can take to help prevent diseases.
I hope these took kits give you some ideas about things you can do, habits you can start, that will see you get healthier in 2026.
There’s a couple of other things that I want to talk about. When I was at the technology show a couple of weeks ago, I was impressed with the number of new devices that helped people with mobility disabilities. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that if you’re not very mobile it’s hard to exercise, hard to get out, hard to even get to the doctor. There are new devices that use sensors, AI, and cameras to enable the mobility challenged people the freedom to move, exercise and more easily interact with society. I am really excited when I see technology change lives and I think that will keep happening with ever accelerating speed.
Lastly, I’ve done a lot of things to become healthier in the last year or so, I lost weight, made sure I got vaccinated and ate more natural non processed food. What I haven’t done is exercise. I’m not a complete slug, I walk some, golf (I do take a cart), do yard work and home repairs. What I don’t do is really strengthen my core or do any cardiovascular exercise. I’m very rarely out of breath or do anything that causes my pulse to go over 100 bpm. The heart experts say that for those 70 (that’s the highest they go on their chart) your target exercise rate is between 75 and 128 bpm with 75 being very light exercise and128 being very vigorous. They recommend 30 minutes a day, 5 days a week. I’m looking into core exercises like planks or even chair exercises. Hopefully doing these type of core exercises will also get my heart rate up. My point here is that there’s information out there and as hard as I try, I can’t find a reason why I don’t develop this habit of exercise that might have the most impact on my overall health. I hope you and I both do something that makes us healthier in 2026.
Best, Thair