Janelle Patterson
jp004@marietta.edu
As students finalize their plans for Spring Break, the two-month checkpoint on New Year’s resolutions is up. According to research published this year by the University of Scranton, the number-one New Year’s resolution for 2015 is to lose weight, followed closely by number five: staying fit and healthy. Other data included in that study surrounds the success rates of maintaining one’s resolution past the first week (75 percent) and more specifically the success rate of people in their twenties who achieve their resolution each year.
Of those college-aged resolutioners, only 39 percent are likely to reach their goal by the end of 2015. Why such a low success rate among our peers? Amy Cuddy, a social psychologist and professor at Harvard Business School, told Business Insider that “people are making absolute statements about what they’re going to do, and that’s setting them up for failure immediately because they’re not always going to go to the gym three times a week.”
Had you set foot in Joy Held’s yoga classes on any Tuesday or Thursday in January, the sight would have shocked you. The multi-purpose room was filled to the brink with mats almost touching each other and barely any room for a sitting fan pose. Frequenters of the class Kay Shanda and Nikki Morrone joked with Held to just wait until the New Year’s resolutioners died out, though genuinely wishing them luck on their wellness goals. Now, Tuesdays are back to the more usual numbers of 15-25 participants, and Thursdays, which are innately more advanced evenings, are back into the 8-12 range.
But rather than focusing on the overhanging resolution and resulting guilt if/when the resolution is broken, why not just focus on one day or week at a time? Committing to living healthy doesn’t mean setting a specific weight goal or obtusely exclaiming that you will no longer eat dessert at Gilman. It simply means that you want to continuously feel better, look better, and be better.
Michael Otto, a professor of psychology at Boston University, said, “the link between exercise and mood is pretty strong, usually within five minutes after moderate exercise you get a mood-enhancement effect.”
Not only have links been made by researchers to exercise and mood enhancement, but also to memory retention and dealing better with stressful situations. Otto said that consistent exercise can even “biologically toughen up the brain so stress has less of a central impact.” So take Nike’s slogan to heart and just get yourself to the gym, on a walk, or into a routine that works for you.
