Upgrade Your Wellbeing This New Year

Pick a goal that will enhance your life and elevate your sense of wellbeing

5 HEALTHY upgrades for 2020 that will make you feel great

It’s a new year, a good time to improve upon old habits. We humans are amazing in our endless desire to work towards a better future and bettering ourselves, but most new year resolutions are hard to keep, because resolve is in short supply and by mid-January most resolutions have evaporated.

Instead, I suggest picking a goal that will enhance your life and elevate your sense of wellbeing almost straightaway.

A few suggestions:

Do some yoga

Yoga is great practice for your body and your mind, and although I don’t think everyone needs yoga in their lives, I think that it can enhance the life of anyone who gets into it. Seriously.

The reason I’m mentioning yoga now is because I have a low-cost/almost free plan for you ­– I know, access to a yoga studio and time for full sessions is a luxury not everyone has, and the pre-recorded TV sessions are repetitive and hard to follow in my humble opinion.

I finally found the app that makes yoga practice easy to start, easy to follow (you can place your phone where you can see it), customizable, and extremely variable in both practice and music – you get a new sequence and playlist practically every session. It’s called Down Dog and it's available for all devices. The app is free to download and is free of ads; subscriptions are $34.99/year when bought through the website, there’s a new year's sale going on now: $19.99/year, (60% off the in-app price.) There’s also financial aid; send a note to help@downdogapp.com explaining your circumstances and the good people at Down Dog may give you a long free trial.

Eat less meat

Although the Golden Globes 2020 served a totally animal-products free meal, the world isn’t going vegan, not anytime soon, and I’m not suggesting giving up foods you love is an upgrade.

What I do think we can all do with little sacrifice is eat less meat. It’s absolutely clear that our current food system is a major contributor to climate change. A UN climate-change report, compiled by 100 experts from around the world, includes dire predictions, and a policy recommendation to reduce meat consumption. It’s also quite clear that eating a more plant-based diet can improve your health.

Eating less meat has become much easier, and it’s super fashionable.

And the best way to go about it is to focus on what you can eat more of, because as you clear some space on your plate you’re going to load it with colorful veggies, whole grains, pulses and beans, nuts and seeds, aromatic spices and herbs and sweet fruit.

Perhaps a better title for this goal is Eat More Plants. And while you’re at it, remember that there’s plenty of vegan junk food out there. The benefits of plant-based diets are seen with whole plant-based foods, not with highly processed animal-product-free ones.

Give eating a (short) rest

Another current trend for weight loss and fitness is Intermittent Fasting, which at its severe end can’t be fun. 

Time restricted eating – the practice of consuming daily meals within a limited time window that can range anything from 3 to 14 hours – is often lumped together with Intermittent Fasting. When the window narrows to just 3 hours it’s a lot like intermittent fasting, but when the window is 10-14 hours it actually resembles what life used to be like for most of humanity until just recently.

Studies show that longer nighttime food abstinence, with meals spread to 10-12 hours of the day, lead to an involuntary and effortless cut in calories and to weight loss.

Try for a 10-14 hour window with no food overnight. Brush your teeth after dinner – that seals the day’s meals, and if you’re like me, sheer laziness about brushing dampens my desire for snacking – see what happens.

Cook more

Resist the growing ease of ordering takeout and don’t fall into the habit of food deliveries. Food should not come that easily and there are many hidden costs and consequences when you outsource your food to the pros, corporations and delivery services. Knowing food through your fingers and from the aromas spreading in your kitchen, playing with the colors, tastes and textures, makes you satisfied with less food, and can make you a more mindful eater. When you cook you’ll discover the irrational value we attribute to the objects we have a more intimate relationship with — kids adore the dish that they themselves made just because they made it; grownups are no different.

Cooking becomes more fun as you get more familiar with it — confidence and creativity grow with time and add layers of kitchen joy – but no matter what stage you’re at, you can cook. Anyone can cook. Absolute beginner with few tools? Start with a green salad: get yourself a bag of pre-washed crisp organic greens and put them in a big bowl, add a handful of roasted nuts or seeds and a sprinkle of raisins, chop an apple or a pear, dress all these in an olive oil and balsamic vinegar dressing (oil to vinegar ratio of 2 to 1) – and that’s it! Already cooking? Commit to eating a few more home-cooked meals each week. Cooking is a practice, and much like yoga, doing it again and again, improving with time, brings a sense of calm and control.

It’s going to feel good.

No matter what you cook at home it will usually be healthier than the bought version and can also save you money. Eating at a restaurant is even more enjoyable when it’s done just occasionally; a soggy, lukewarm restaurant takeout in a plastic container is culinary and sensory deprivation and a recipe for overeating.

Go outside

I believe we need contact with nature for our wellbeing. Every child and every dog demands a steady dose of this powerful elixir, yet too many people deny themselves this essential pleasure.

I know this to be true.

There’s also plenty of evidence that greener living circumstances are associated with better health: Nature exposure lowers the risk of heart disease, obesity, diabetes, asthma, anxiety and early death. It’s even been shown that fewer kids need corrective glasses when there are more greenspaces in the neighborhood.

Find your local park, look for trails (I love Alltrails – one of the most useful apps on my phone, it’s free and has no ads), notice the birds, visit them all, often. Walking outside is, to me, the most reliable form of de-stressing and mindfulness.

Have a peaceful and healthy 2020!

Dr. Ayala