With New Year’s Eve just around the corner, it’s time to start thinking about resolutions and ways to improve yourself and your life in the coming year. One of the best things you can do for yourself is to make healthier decisions. To help, we’ve put together a list of the 5 best healthy New Year’s resolutions for 2020 and beyond.
 1. Drink More Water
One of the healthy resolutions that is the simplest to stick to is to drink more water in the coming year. Even though we all know that we need water to be healthy, many of us don’t drink nearly as much as we should, leading to prolonged low-level dehydration. Far from the obvious signs of severe, acute dehydration, chronic dehydration usually results in more subtle symptoms such as frequent headaches, dry mouth, bad moods and general tiredness. Oddly, dehydration can also cause your body to retain water weight, making you look and feel heavier than you really are.
Fortunately, drinking too little water is also one of the easiest lifestyle problems to fix. To get started, simply begin drinking the recommended eight 8-ounce glasses of water each day. This should be enough to rehydrate you and get you feeling your best again.
Starting a regimen of drinking more water also gives you a chance to cut back on less healthy beverages like soda or alcoholic drinks. By switching these calorie-laden, potentially dehydrating drinks out for a glass of straight water, you can improve your hydration levels and your nutrition at the same time.
2. Fix Your Vitamin D Deficiency
From a young age, you’re told how important vitamins and minerals are. Even if you eat a balanced diet, though, there’s a good chance that you’re deficient in the key nutrient vitamin D. According to a recent study, about 42 percent of American adults are vitamin D deficient, a statistic that’s worrisome to say the least.
Vitamin D deficiency can result in a number of health issues. Two of the most notable symptoms are depression and fatigue, though this is far from the full picture. Over time, lack of vitamin D can result in everything from thinning hair to reduced bone density.
Vitamin D is synthesized in the human body when skin is exposed to the sun, so one of the best and easiest ways to increase your vitamin D levels is to spend more time outside in the sunlight. Needless to say, it’s also important to protect yourself from the potentially harmful effects of excessive sun exposure, so be sure to use common sense on the amount of time you spend in direct sunlight and use a good sunscreen when necessary.
For additional vitamin D, you can turn to foods that are naturally rich in this essential nutrient. Fatty fish, such as salmon, sardines and cod, are great supplemental sources of vitamin D. It can also be found in eggs, milk, cheese, yogurt and most other dairy products.
3. Walk an Extra Mile Every Day
When it comes to healthy New Year’s resolutions, few are as achievable yet effective as the simple act of walking an extra mile each day. Getting out and taking a mile-long walk day can improve your cardiovascular health, help you maintain a healthy weight and even help to keep your leg muscles strong and healthy.
Aside from the obvious benefits of incorporating more exercise, a mile walk is a great way to relax and de-stress at the end of the day. Before you know it, you’ll find that your daily walk is something you look forward to, and sticking with your healthy resolution will become virtually effortless.
4. Breathe Cleaner Air
Like chronic dehydration, polluted air is a problem you might never notice but which can have profound effects on your health. Between pollution from cars, VOCs from building materials and natural contaminants like dust and pollen, most people are breathing low-quality air in their homes. If you’re looking for a healthy New Year’s resolution that is easy to achieve and can help you live a healthier life, cleaning up your home air may be a great choice for you.
To clean up your home air, the most effective method is to use a residential air purifier with both HEPA and carbon filters. The HEPA filter will remove particles, while the carbon filter takes out gases, odors and VOCs. Between the two systems, you’ll be able to remove a wide range of common contaminants from your home air.
You may also find it helpful to measure the air quality in your home with an indoor air quality meter. These devices will let you see what your current air quality is and make it easier for you to track changes as you use your air purifier to improve it. An air quality meter takes the guesswork out of your resolution to clean up your home air.
5. Eat Less Sugar
While nutritional advice seems to change almost every day with new findings, one thing that remains true is that most people eat too much sugar. From sugary drinks to sweet snacks, processed sugars are everywhere. While there’s nothing wrong with the occasional treat, eating too much sugar regularly can lead to skin outbreaks, inflammation and could even contribute to diabetes over time.
To lead a healthier life in 2020, one of the best things you can do is to cut back on processed sugar. Start by cutting back on soda and desserts, since these are two major sources of extra sugar. You should also start keeping an eye out for added sugars in processed foods that can add up throughout the day.
Why Make a Healthy Resolution?
While you could make a New Year’s resolution about nearly anything, there are some obvious reasons to make a health-related one. Improving your health is one of the best ways to improve your overall quality of life. In fact, being healthier can easily support other goals, such as getting more work done or finding the energy to start new hobbies.
Improving your health is also a great idea for a New Year’s resolution because it can usually be done with small actions and adjustments made each day. Rather than having to take one very large step, most health goals can easily be broken down into small, regular steps. This makes them perfect for yearlong resolutions.
Tips for Sticking to Your Healthy New Year’s Resolution
Making a resolution is easy enough, but sticking with it is the hard part. To make sure your 2020 resolution isn’t another one that you give up on after a few weeks, we’ve put together a few tips for sticking to it.
1. Tell Someone Else
One of the best ways to keep yourself accountable is to tell someone else about your healthy resolution. When another person knows what you’re resolving to do, you’ll find it less easy to let yourself lapse. This appeoach works especially well if someone you know is making a similar resolution, since you can help to keep each other accountable.
2. Use a Calendar or Day Planner
Another great way to make sure you stick to your new goal is to use a calendar or day planner. Each day, check off whether you’ve taken action on your resolution. This habit will not only make it easier to stay accountable but will also help you track your progress throughout the year.
3. Have an Actionable Plan
Before the new year begins, try to come up with a specific plan for your health New Year’s resolution. Break down whatever you want to achieve into smaller steps. Ideally, these steps would be some small action you can take every day, though the exact form will depend on the resolution itself. Having this plan will help you define and achieve your goals more effectively.
4. Turn Your Goal Into a Habit
One of the best things you can do to make sure that you stick to your resolution for an entire year is to turn your goal into a habit. To do this, try to take the same action at the same time every day. If you resolved to walk a mile a day, for example, you could take your walk after dinner every night. After a few weeks, you’ll find that the action simple becomes part of your daily routine, and you won’t have to consciously remind yourself of it every day.
Can You Make More Than One Healthy New Year’s Resolution?
If you want to change to a radically healthier lifestyle in the new year, you can try making multiple resolutions relating to your health. With more than one resolution, though, it becomes even more important to carefully track your progress and keep yourself accountable. Having multiple goals to juggle will make it easier to lose track of all of them, so you need to be very careful about how you stay on track.
A good way to approach multiple goals is to have one easier goal and one harder one. For example, resolving to improve your home air quality and get more vitamin D would be a good combination of healthy resolutions. Cleaning your home air isn’t necessarily simple, but once you have the right air purifier, it’s a largely passive process that doesn’t require daily action on your part. Changing your diet to include more vitamin D, on the other hand, will require you to make daily nutritional choices that support your goal.
By combining an easier goal with a harder one, you can achieve multiple things without the risk of failing by putting too much on your own plate. This strategy works well for all New Year’s resolutions, not just those related to health and wellness.
If you’ve decided that breathing cleaner air should be one of your healthy New Year’s resolutions, US Air Purifiers is here to help! With a great selection of home air purifiers and indoor air quality meters, we can help you get the tools you need to breathe cleaner air every day of the year. To learn more about air purification options, check out our blog or reach out to us with your questions!