Making health resolutions that stick
Need support sticking to your new year’s resolutions? These tips will help you reach your health goals in 2026.
Say goodbye to 2025 and welcome 2026, a year to renew, reset, and prioritize your health. Keeping the promise to be your healthiest self in the new year can feel challenging, but sticking to your resolutions and improving your health for years to come is absolutely possible.
Before starting, decide whether you’re ready to commit and if you prefer to dive in with immediate changes or take a gradual approach. Permanent behavior change requires time, so don’t expect overnight results. Once you practice a new habit consistently for three weeks, maintaining it becomes much easier for the long term.
Everyone approaches healthy changes with different goals; some even juggle several at once. Whatever your goal, these tips will help you take action and greet the new year with fresh, healthy resolve.
Be more active
One of the most common resolutions many people make for the new year is to exercise more. It’s also one of the top resolutions that they fail to keep up with. But knowing what your weekly target is for physical activity might help you stick to it. Adults need at least 150 minutes a week, which is under 30 minutes a day. Jumpstart your routine by planning to have friends join you on a daily walk and watch those 30 minutes fly by.
Staying active, which can include walking, swimming, aerobics, and more, can help reduce your risk of heart disease, diabetes, and stroke, and can also help reduce inflammation. Before starting any exercise routine, check in with your physician first.
Get more sleep
Sufficient sleep is essential to good health and well-being. Sleep helps deliver the energy you need to get through the day and do all you need to do. Lack of sleep can put you at higher risk for chronic conditions, such as high blood pressure and diabetes. Try to aim for at least 7 to 8 hours a night, and to get better sleep, you can also:
- Keep light of your bedroom and the temperature cool
- Turn off screens 1-2 hours before bedtime. Blue light from your screens can decrease melatonin, the hormone that regulates sleep.
- Set a regular time to go to bed and to wake up. These tips are also important for your school age children to stick to.
Eat healthier foods
Many of us want to make dietary changes in the new year to help improve our health. If you’re one of those, start by focusing on eating whole, nutritious foods, primarily plant based. Include fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains, seeds, and legumes, and food that is not highly processed. Avoid fast foods and sugary food or meals that are high in sodium, which can lead to high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and high blood sugar. There’s no need to eliminate animal protein from your diet if you enjoy it; just eat in moderation and make sure to include healthier whole food options.
Maintain your mental well-being
Self-care is always important, so make time for it at any time of the year. Begin by practicing mindfulness every day, which helps to improve your mental and physical health, reduce stress, and even improve your sleep. And you can include other ways to take care of your emotional health, such as meditation, in your resolutions for the new year.
Set goals to achieve your resolutions
Once you commit to them, reaching goals is attainable. Ensure you’re dedicated, and that you understand why you want to reach your goals. And go ahead and reward yourself once you hit a desired goal.
And note that you don’t need to start on the first day of the new year. Spread your goals out a little and give yourself grace if it takes a little longer than you hoped. You’ll get there.
Idongesit Attang, MD is a board-certified internal medicine physician with the Mid-Atlantic Permanente Medical Group. He sees patients at the Kaiser Permanente largo Medical Center.
Kaiser Permanente is honored to partner with The St. James to help keep our young athletes healthy and thriving, both on and off the field.
Kaiser Permanente’s Center for Healthy Weight and Lifestyle Medicine offers patients evidence-based strategies to improve their health through weight loss, reversing and controlling chronic diseases, and possibly decreasing dependence on medication. The Center offers surgical and nonsurgical options to weight loss including wellness classes and individual coaching, Diabetes Prevention Program, Lifestyle Medicine Program, weight-loss medication, and bariatric surgery.
Visit our website to learn more about the Center and find additional nutrition tips.