Let’s make it clear that new year resolutions are not bad. It’s a good idea to try to change  things in the new year. But there are many reasons why it’s not such a good idea to use the 1st of January as magical starting point. I will explain to you why.

Change isn’t time-bound

Change can happen any moment. It’s not about the moment itself, it’s about the motivation you have. When you’re aiming for the 1st of January as a starting point, it means that during the course of the year there are no good moments for change. The idea to change things, has probably arisen way earlier. To use this idea as a resolution for the new year, it’s actually just procrastination. And everyone knows procrastination is the thief of time! 

Do you  get a idea to change something? Start  as quickly as possible when your intrinsic motivation is  still fresh.

Compensate

Another reason why it is not so good idea to start your resolutions on the 1st of January is because it will become cut and dried. It’s an easy way to give in to your old bad habits for a little longer until the new year has arrived. But actually this will cause the situation where you have to compensate even more when starting your resolution.

(Not)better next year!

When you fail to maintain your resolutions and you slip once, obviously that’s fine. It can happen. But when you use January as starting point, it’s really easy to completely give up and call it a day. Next year when it’s January again, you will just try again. It means that January is an external motivator, while the actual motivation should come from within.

Don’t dream, make goals 

Think about what you want to actually change. Starting a diet, quit smoking or saving money are all things that you can measure. But a lot of people also want to completely change their behaviour under the guise of “A new year, a new me!”. It’s a beautiful dream, but to be able to actually achieve your goals it is important to make them measurable  and realistic . 

Do you want help from a coach to get started with your intentions? Take our quiz in 2 minutes and see NiceDay coaching is for you.

Every year it seems to become less and less popular in The Netherlands: New Year’s resolutions. For example, only a quarter of Dutch people think January is a good time to start with resolutions. Of course you don’t have to do this directly on the first of January, starting with resolutions later on in the year may work better for you. However, setting goals for yourself offer a dot on the horizon. Are you planning to set your New Year’s resolutions? Consider the question: “are my resolutions, healthy resolutions?” Because with healthy intentions you increase your chance of success!

Resolutions versus healthy resolutions

New Year’s resolutions offer you a moment to think about what you want to achieve in the new year: losing 5 kilos, becoming more productive or spending more time with family and friends. Quite fine to want that for yourself. Definitely worth it to spend time and effort on it! However, these resolutions often stem from something negative (such as fear or dissatisfaction with yourself). For example, you want to lose that 5 kilos because you believe you are unattractive. Or you want to be more productive because you are dissatisfied with what you have achieved or think of yourself as lazy. You actually tell yourself that you are not good enough as you are now. And that is how you give yourself a false start.

Increase your chance of success

Whether you start immediately in January or start to work with your resolutions later in the year, make sure you start from a healthy place. Healthy resolutions stem from self-love and self-compassion. The chance that you will make a lasting change in your life is much bigger!

A few examples of a health resolutions:

• I’m going to take good care of my body this year because I deserve better. I don’t want to eat junk food, I listen to my body and I take time to take good care of my body.
• This year I will make my dreams come true: I am good at what I do, I enjoy it and I want to make time for that. That way I can learn and grow even more.
• I deserve loving and healthy relationships with the people around me. This year I invest more time and attention in the people who are important to me. I enjoy time with them, I accept them as they are and they accept me as I am. Relationships that don’t work, I let go. This way both parties can go their own way.

There is nothing wrong with the desire to change things, but try to start from the positive and self-compassion. With the right motivation you will really change things and you will see that life is getting better and better!

Do it step by step and take your time. Reward yourself regularly too! Do you need some help with self-compassion, self-confidence or goal setting? We are happy to help you further! For more information about online help, visit our Getting Started page.

Everybody knows and recognizes habits. You are used to do certain actions. For example, always showering in the morning instead of in the evening, biting  nails or eating a not so healthy snack in the evening.

Bad habits

You want to quit doing certain actions but you do not know how you are supposed to do that. Do you have any bad habits? Bad habits are for example: biting nails, eating unhealthy in the evening or spending too much money on stuff you do not really need. These are just examples, of course there is a scala of bad habits you can have.

Good habits

Not all habits are bad. There are also good habits like eating two pieces of fruit a day. Do you find it hard to create healthy habits? Think why you would like this habit in your life? Motivation can help you integrate habits in your life. Furthermore, it is important to set achievable goals. For example, drinking water can be huge if you are used to drinking sodas. Do it in steps: just reduce drinking sodas before completely quitting it. If you do this step by step you will get used to it more easily.

How do you break bad habits?

Breaking bad habits can be a challenge. You are doing these actions unconsciously, think of biting your nails. Consider, when are you doing this and why? It’s not unlikely that you do it on stressful moments.

It is important to figure out what the trigger is. Is it because of stress or is it just because you are bored? If you know what is causing the habit, you can tackle the habit. Also it can help to replace a bad habit with another, healthier habit. If you know what the trigger is you can say to yourself ‘stop’ and replace your habit with something else. For example, you can grab a glass of water instead. This does not only make you bite nails less often, but also helps to associate that trigger, for example stress, with a glass of water. Plus: drinking water is good for you, a win-win situation!

NiceDay app

Which habits would you like to break? Write in your NiceDay-diary when a bad habit appears. What is the situation and how do you feel? How can you respond on it the next time?

The first months of 2018 are over. How about your New Year’s resolutions, still going strong? Whether the answer is yes or no, we would like to give you some tips on how to stick to your resolutions. We have already discussed how to quit smoking, how to limit alcohol intake and how to create habits, in this article we share some tips to stop you from snacking.

Hangry
You might have heard of it: being hangry. Being hangry is a combination of being ‘hungry’ and being ‘angry’. This ‘emotion’ started off as a joke, but there is actually a truth behind it. You get hungry when your glucose levels are low. Glucose is a nutrient that makes you feel good and provides self control. When your blood sugar level decreases, and so your glucose level, you get more sensitive and touchy. This is not only affecting your mood and social relationships, it is also no good for your diet.

Sorry for what I said when I was hungry. – Everyone

Unhealthy foods causes you to get in a vicious circle of blood sugar fluctuations. Food high in sugar will cause peaks in your blood sugar level, resulting in high declines afterwards. You will quickly feel hungry and wanting to eat something again. So keep your blood sugar level steady. Avoid added sugars and go for satisfying products. These are products high in proteins and fibre, like; whole wheat products, low fat quark or yogurt, nuts, seeds and eggs. Eat regularly and shortly after a workout. Try to eat enough veggies and do not skip breakfast!

Believe you can and you are half way there
Are you snacking not because of hunger, but because of cravings? Every once in a while it is OK to treat yourself, but once it stops feeling like a treat you are doing something wrong. It is time to get more self control! Also for self control it is also important to keep your blood sugar level steady. Fluctuations affect your hormones and so you thoughts and resilience. But even more important than that: start believing in yourself! Research has shown that when you do not (fully) believe you can stop snacking, snacking gets more important to you (Job, 2013). You start believing your own thoughts, so let them be positive!

Eat mindfully
A bag of chips on the couch, lunch behind the pc or an inbetween juice. It does not give you enough satisfaction and saturation. You do not taste it and you do not give you body enough time and attention to digest it.

But how do you do it, mindful eating? Firstly, you have to listen to your body: How do you feel, are you feeling hungry? Would a bowl of yogurt reduce your appetite or is it a bar of chocolate that you are craving for? It is OK to crave chocolate (every once in awhile), but it is not a good idea to choose chocolate when you are feeling hungry. Eat slowly and consciously. How does it taste, does it satisfy you? Stop when you do not like it and go for something that does satisfy you. Keep listening to your body and stop when you feel full.

Ghrelin
Ghrelin is the hormone of hunger. Your body produces the hormone to tell you to eat something. In other words: the more ghrelin you produce, the bigger your appetite. A bigger appetite will result in snacking. Your ghrelin level increases when you skip meals and sleep too little. So having enough structure is very important! The production of ghrelin gets inhibited by proteins, so make sure to eat enough foods that are high in proteins. An average person needs at least 80% of the total body weight in grams of protein a day. So if you weigh 70 kilograms, you need at least 56 grams of protein a day. Foods high in protein are dairy products, chicken or turkey, nuts, quinoa and legumes.  

You read and hear it everywhere: a new year, a new start. There is a lot of pressure on those first weeks of the new year. Did you make a good start with all the intentions you have set for yourself? Have you set enough goals? Are they also the right ones? Nothing wrong with setting goals for yourself, certainly not! But as Renee also states, it is not necessary to start the year with all kinds of new resolutions.

What might be fun though, is to learn more about habits. This time we want to talk about creating new habits, which contribute to your overall sense of happiness. And, according to behavioral scientist BJ Fogg, you can create new habits in very small steps.

Flossing teeth
How small? BJ Fogg cites the example of teeth flossing. Start by flossing 1 tooth per day. Maybe it seems a crazy example at first, but just think about it: probably you or someone in your immediate environment has already made an attempt to incorporate flossing into the daily routine. You keep it up for a while cause the dentist made you aware of how important it is to do so. But, after awhile, you stop.

By starting small, you become accustomed to the action without it having a major impact on the rest of your routine. Slowly you are working on creating a new habit for yourself, which in turn will ensure that it becomes easier to learn other habits.

According to Fogg, the ripple effect is common and psychologists do not know exactly why it happens. One theory: thanks to the small wins, people can consciously or unconsciously break through other obstacles in their lives.

Start small and what else?
If you only start small, you may not be there yet. To learn new behavior it is also very important that you are motivated, that you have the opportunity to actually do it and that there is a trigger that reminds you to cultivate your new habit. A trigger can be brushing teeth in the case of teeth flossing. For sports this can be, for example, work: I go to the gym twice a week after work.

Which habit do you want to teach yourself?

Although practically everyone knows that smoking is bad for your health, many people seem to find it difficult to stop this habit. Therefore, we will discuss a cessation plan with ways that make it easier to quit smoking.

Being well prepared is half the work
Try to choose a date within now and four weeks. This gives you plenty of time to prepare your smoking cessation plan. Choose this date carefully. An upcoming stressful period is not a good moment for example because you need to be able to focus on smoking cessation.

• Create a list of benefits. This is a reminder for you during the difficult moments, so you do not forget why you gave up smoking. Write these key advantages down. for example: I want to feel fitter, I want to be a good example for my kids or I save a lot of money this way.
• Monitor your smoking behavior. What are the moments you smoke? Try to find alternatives for these moments and change your routines. Instead of smoking a cigarette with colleagues during a break, you can also take a cup of tea or go for a small walk.
• Think for yourself what you can do during a difficult moment. The success of smoking cessation often depends on the survival of the difficult moments when the urge to have a cigarette is at its greatest. How do you, for example, cope with the urge to smoke a cigarette during a stressful period. These urges don’t last longer than 5 minutes for most of the time. Write down what you can do to get through these difficult minutes. Finding distraction in the form of executing another task or finding relaxation through breathing exercises are often effective ways of dealing with these urges.
• Throw away everything around the house that is related to smoking. Also check your coats, bags and the car to make sure the chance of meeting cigarettes and smoking related stuff like lighters or ashtrays is as little as possible.  
• Find the help that suits you. Only 3-5% of the cessation attempts succeed on their own. Smoking cessation support comes in many different forms. Self-help programs, coaching support, medicines, nicotine replacement, group therapy and different apps are all ways that can support you with smoking cessation.

Smoking cessation in the long run.
Most withdrawal symptoms disappear after the first 48 hours and after a week all the nicotine has left the body. However, after this period, failures in smoking cessation are still present all too often. This partially comes from the fact that you are still mentally sensitive or vulnerable for smoking. It is important to realize that you are vulnerable to prevent relapse. Furthermore, it is important to be aware of a few things.

• Do n0t give up after you gave in to your urges, but learn from this. A lot of people give up their cessation attempt after they have sinned.  This is a shame because you were on the right track. Do not see this or yourself as a failure but as a small and single relapse. Find out why, out of all moments, you gave in at this moment. Use this knowledge to prevent this from happening next time.
• Do not lose your goal out of sight. Use your smoking cessation plan to remind you of the reason(s) you want to give up smoking.
• Focus on the positive effect of giving up smoking. How is your state of mind and health now that you gave smoking? Many apps also remind you of the money you saved by giving up smoking. These are key motivators, which help you to stay smoke free.