What’s Your One Thing for Wellbeing?

It’s the time of year when many set – and break – resolutions. The science of habit formation actually supports using “the fresh start effect”, like a new year, to kick start new habits. It supports linking new habits to existing practices (ie do 10 squats while your coffee is brewing). It also supports focus: developing one new habit at a time.

But if you are anything like me, you have a whole list of eligible options that you know will improve health and wellbeing.

Any of these New Year's resolutions sound familiar?

• Exercise every day…or at least most days
• Eat fewer cookies and pizza carbs
• Drink less beer/wine/French 75s
• Spend less time sucked into Instagram/LinkedIn/Twitter/TikTok/FB
• Get 7+ hours of sleep – aka stop binging Stranger Things/Emily in Paris
• Write a daily gratitude list
• Floss everyday
• Get up and walk around after 3 hours of Zoom calls
• Have healthy meals with the family. See #2 re: pizza.
• Get together with friends once a week
• Pick up a hobby – ideally one that doesn’t involve French 75s or pizza
• Read for 30 minutes a day

The temptation to do extreme habit makeover on week one of January is high if the quantity of listicles online is any proxy. You can easily find articles about 7 things or 12 things or 74(!) things you can do to improve health and wellbeing.

But everything I know about habit formation says ONE THING. Work on ONE THING.

So how do you pick your one thing?

Let’s start with physical health. One of the most comprehensive studies on health outcomes narrowed it down to five healthy habits and it didn’t matter WHICH one of the five to get an extra two years of healthy living vs. none of them. The winners were: healthy diet, healthy weight, don’t smoke, drink very moderately if at all, and exercise at least 30 minutes every day. And if you did all five? Women got an extra 14 years of life and men got 12 and avoided diseases like cancer for 10+ more years. So go look at that list and if you aren’t doing one (or more) of those things, now you know where to focus.

Let’s move on to mental health and wellbeing. So the good news is that several items on the Top 5 list for physical health are on the top lists for mental health. Yeah for the “two for ones” like exercise and healthy diet. What gets added is: sleep (enough, but not too much), practicing gratitude/mindfulness, getting involved in activities you enjoy, and limiting screen time.

Your dentist might be upset about flossing not making your “ONE THING” list, but we need prioritization. Flossing can come once that obsession with dogs being cute with cats on Instagram is tamed.