Once again, we are welcoming up to the new year and with that comes a renewed energy to set goals, work on ourselves and make 2025 the happiest, healthiest and most fulfilling year to date.
Here are the top 10 resolutions for the new year, how to complete them, how to break through those barriers, and succeed.
1. Creating a better nightly routine
2. Move your body
3. Get Gut Friendly
4. Dry January
5. Take your vitamins and supplements
6. Minimise screentime
7. Replace nighttime TV with reading
8. Try meditation
9. Organise your living space
10. Educate yourself about your Well-being
Creating a better nightly routine
Don’t let sleep be elusive, create the best environment for a restful slumber. Our modern world puts up lots of barriers for an ideal night's sleep. For example, experts recommend 1-2 hours of screen free time before going to sleep.
Additionally, If you are in your menopausal years, try to sleep in cooler temperatures and natural fibres to minimise sweating. Experts say the ideal room temperature is 15°C for a restful night's sleep.
Stress, is another inhibitor of our sleep-related hormones, leaving you feeling wired. Try to minimise stress with ingredients like chamomile, CBD, lavender, lemon balm, magnesium and more for the perfect sleepy storm. We roll all these soothing botanicals into a 1-a-day Bedtime Bliss Supplement. If taken before bedtime, it can help you reach a blissful state of sleep and relaxation. Or try including it in a nightly routine of journaling, yoga, meditation and breathwork exercises.
Move Your Body
Exercise is beneficial to so many areas of life – range of movement, joint flexibility, bone density, weight management, mental well-being, heart health, muscle strength, just to name a few. As we age, exercise looks a bit different. Perhaps not used as a vanity project, lifting the biggest and heaviest weights or having the most toned abs but instead focusing on fit and function, endurance and overall wellbeing.
There are lots of ways to get moving such as joining a local exercise group, find a gym buddy, organise a walk with friends and family, join a digital movement like couch to 5k. Equally, you can bring exercise into your home. Youtube and apps like Les Mills are a wealth of exercise resources. Not to mention, an at home device that can be used in your living room or even from the comfort of your armchair while watching TV. Introducing the Vytabike, designed to promote active sitting. Burn calories while watching the TV or working. The motorised elliptical trainer simulates the motion of walking from a seated position. Exercise, strengthen, tone and burn calories.
Get gut friendly
Research is discovering that the gut is the epicentre of your body. Science has demonstrated that the gut environment is related to mental health, immune health, weight management, projected disease risk, as well as digestive health – of course. There are things you can avoid that destroy our natural gut environment including stress, excess caffeine, high-sugar diets, and long-stints on antibiotics. But, there are lifestyle factors you can implement to improve the gut environment, such as eating a high-fibre diet, or introducing prebiotics and probiotic bacteria to your daily routine. This can help to improve digestive health and bolster a normal immune system. Vytaliving has an expertly formulated Prebiotic and Probiotic complex, packed full of 8 strains of gut-loving probiotic bacteria, prebiotic inulin and turmeric.
Dry January
It’s no secret that alcohol isn’t exactly aligned with a healthy and balanced lifestyle. “Everything in moderation’ they say, this isn't strictly true when it comes to alcohol. Nutritionists say it has absolutely zero nutritive value and shouldn't be considered as part of the diet, but more of an occasional add-on. Particularly at this time of the year a break from alcohol is often needed. A nationwide campaign called ‘Dry January’ started in 2012. Since its inception it has gained momentum, breaking ties between habit and the social expectations around alcohol. The campaign encourages people to stop drinking for the month of January, allowing breathing room to discover their relationship with alcohol.
To read more about the campaign click HERE, if you’d like to download the app to track your progress, download through the links below:
Take your Vitamins and Supplements
It takes a lot to run the well-oiled machine that is your body. Consider your daily supplement, vitamin, mineral or botanical takes just 20 seconds to take (if that), but supports a wealth of health benefits. Including bone health, collagen production, immune system function, cognitive function, energy metabolism, iron absorption, blood formation, psychological and nervous system function. Vytaliving stocks supplements for joint health, immune health, digestive health and more... Shop the full range here: Vitamins & Supplements. If you want to check up on your general wellbeing, we also stock at-home test kits to measure and monitor. These include tests for prostate health, kidney function, bowel well-being, liver health Vitamin D deficiency and more. All can be performed by just you, in the comfort of your own home. Shop the full range here: At Home Test Kits.
Minimise screen time
Screentime can be fun for winding down at the end of the day, but it can also be addictive. The average person spends 3 hours and 15 minutes on their smartphone or technology per day! Considering most people are awake for 15-16 hours of the day, this is a large chunk. Add to that, many of us work from our screens too.
Screen time has been proven to have an effect on mental health as well as sleep quality. Our modern technology emits blue light which can disrupt our natural melatonin-production, otherwise known as our ‘sleepy hormone’. This can have a knock-on effect to mental and emotional well-being for the days following. Most smartphones have a usage-timer setting which can cut off certain apps if you have used them more than a preset number of hours per day. If you identify that one app is responsible for the majority of your mindless scrolling you can set a daily usage limit on this.
Replace TV before bed with reading
In relation to our previous point, you could replace screentime with something productive like reading book, learning a new skill or language. A 2024 report from the Sleep doctor has stated that ‘bedtime readers are 15.1% more likely to rate their sleep quality as “excellent” than non-readers are. And the 9.9% of adults who read before bed every night gain 28 minutes of sleep each week over the average person.’
Having trouble making out the text, don’t strain or squint, we have a solution for the most avid of readers, try the either the Handheld Magnifier with 58 LEDS and 5x magnification or Magnifying Glass Floor Lamp with Light, with x3 magnification.
Try Mediation
The modern world is stressful. Raising prices, global warming, political unrest and more. A lot of these things are outside our grasp but that doesn't mean to say they don’t have a large impact on us. Stress can affect our emotional well-being, the quality of our sleep, social relationships and even our ability to maintain our weight. Meditation helps to calm the mind, improves sleep quality, improves concentration, reduces feelings of depression, helps you to feel in the present and reduces stress and anxiety.
Try the leading mediation app, Read more about Calm.
Organise your living space
A clean space helps with a clear mind. Let’s go into the new year with the right energy – refreshed and reenergised! Out with the old and in with the new. Try your best to remove distractions and clean up unwanted belongings. Don't forget to donate to charity and recycle goods which are still in great working order.
If you are looking for better storage, we have the solution, the 7-piece set Vacuum storage bags, with 5 sizes. Strong, reusable, and effortless to use with any vacuum cleaner.
Educate yourself about your Well-being
Don't worry, you don't have to head out and get a degree. We’ve done the leg work for you. Our very own Nutritionist has written a FREE downloadable e-book complete with exclusive discount on ‘Healthy Ageing’. It happens to us all...Ageing, but gone are the days when “ageing” was a dirty word. 50, 60, 70, 80 is the new 30. Each decade of life is a new chapter to enjoy the blessing of getting older. As the years roll on, good health becomes more elusive and difficult to grasp or maintain, but it doesn't have to be.
Have a gloriously Happy and Healthy New year!
From the Vytaliving Team