A: ACTION v ANXIETY: New Year’s resolutions don’t last for most people and, in a pandemic year, they can become a joke, as American comedian Robyn Schall shared on TikTok, becoming a hit with her unfulfilled wish list for 2020. “Make more money.” (From March she was unemployed). “Travel more.” (Stuck in a New York studio apartment). “Be more social.” (No).
Cry less. (Cried every day). “Spend more time with my grandma.” (Both her grandmothers died). This year she is taking each day as it comes.
People should only make resolutions if it is fun for them and then “make them very concrete and manageable”, says Gretchen Rubin, the author of bestsellers like The Happiness Project and Outer Order, Inner Calm. “Often action is the antidote to anxiety and so doing something like: I’m going to set a bedtime, or I’m going to make time to read every day, or I’m going to go for a 20-minute walk every day,” can give people a sense of control.
B: BREATHE: Not like Usain Bolt at the end of the 100m, more like a Zen monk: slow and conscious. Even a minute can make a difference to how you feel. Cape Town meditation instructor Mimi Cooper says: “Take a few deep breaths and pay attention to the sensation of the breath flowing in and out of your nostrils or mouth. If you are feeling anxious you can gently extend your exhales, which are linked to your parasympathetic nervous system and can help to calm you down.”
C: CYCLING v CARS: Riding to work (if you still have an office) or for fun is great for fitness and a safe way to see friends, provided you don’t bunch together for selfie shots. Bike sales have boomed worldwide under the pandemic, particularly as people are taking back the streets — to eat out, shop and socialise — with increasing support from cities. Paris and Oakland in California are among the frontrunners, reducing space for cars to expand it for cyclists and pedestrians.
D: DON’T DIET: Dieting doesn’t work long term, for rats in labs or people. “A lot of people diet, but what they’re actually doing is living as if they’re starving,” says US psychologist Traci Mann, the author of Secrets from the Eating Lab, an experimental lab at the University of Minnesota.
Dieting causes your hunger hormones to rise, your metabolism to drop and your brain to become “overly responsive to food”, she notes.
“Willpower can be extremely useful in certain parts of people’s lives but, when it comes to eating, it’s just not the problem. It’s not the fix,” she says in a report.
Instead, nutritionists typically recommend choosing nutritious fresh ingredients, eating smaller portions and limiting snacks (pandemic baking will test this) and — as mindfulness practitioners do — appreciating your food in the moment you are eating it.
E: EXERCISE > ENERGY: Walking up stairs is more invigorating than your morning cup of Java, scientists suggest (coffee addicts may object). What is proven is that being active most days — walking and getting your heart rate up, building your strength and stretching — enhances how you feel when you wake up, your health and how long you live.
Ideally, get out under the blue (or grey) skies and join a friend or group. Buy the latest kit if that motivates you. Find a movement you enjoy, for example dancing. If 10 minutes seems too much effort, start with five.
F: FRIENDS: “Some people go to priests, others to poetry, I to my friends,” wrote author Virginia Woolf. Loneliness, social isolation or both are worse for your heart than smoking 15 cigarettes a day or obesity, a major observational study of more than 180,000 adults found, published in the journal Heart in 2016.
The “Blue Zones” of the world, where people live the longest and healthiest — Okinawa, Japan; Sardinia, Italy; Nicoya, Costa Rica; Ikaria, Greece; and Loma Linda, California — have strong communities. Other studies have shown that social relationships protect your brain and can help preserve cognition.
G: GRATITUDE: Every day is a chance to feel grateful for someone or something. Or just for being alive. Yale cognitive scientist professor Laurie Santos, founder of the popular Happiness Lab podcast, is among a host of experts advocating a habit of gratitude every day: writing down three to five things for which you feel thankful.
H: HELPING HAND: “I tell my daughter to try and make someone smile every day,” says traditional healer Gogo Masechaba from Cape Town, who worked in the corporate world before her calling. She also practises gratitude. Being kind and helping others rewards the giver as well as the receiver.
I: ICE CREAM & INTERMITTENT FASTING: Believe it or not, within limits both have benefits. Intermittent fasting promotes longevity — it appears to do a mini-reboot of your system — and supports weight loss, while enhancing alertness and your immunity, research shows. Ice cream may not do that but it has other spin-offs. Ice cream stores have increased across cities in SA and internationally. New York City even has a Museum of Ice Cream — designed as a place where people can connect, experience their senses and be imaginative “through the power of ice cream”.
J: JAZZ: Everyone has been singing the blues during Covid but pop, rock’n’roll, classical music and other genres also play a key role in our lives and creativity. Don’t miss a beat, go find yours. Radio and streaming services make it easy to tune in or, even better, make your own music.
K: KNITTING, GARDENING, BAKING: Nurseries (and not just those quietly selling cannabis) and baking suppliers have defied the odds during lockdown to flourish. The surge in gardening, painting, knitting and baking sourdough bread suggests that people are enjoying tangible pastimes at a time when so much is beyond our grasp. Puzzles and board games have also taken off.
L: LOCAL IS LEKKER: Communities have united under the pandemic to set up feeding schemes and other initiatives to support the vulnerable, such as shopping for older neighbours. Buying local, supporting neighbourhood eateries and domestic travel have risen during the past year, all of which could benefit the planet, not just us.
M: MINDFULNESS: Mindfulness and meditation were trending long before 2020 but their popularity — as a daily practice to calm the mind and live in the present — is unprecedented.
N: NOW: Seize the moment. Smell the flowers. Watch the birds.
O: OUTDOORS: Scientists show it is far safer to meet people outside in the open air than gathering indoors. But also, our mental health has taken a crushing blow globally and being in nature benefits our mind. The exponential increase in people walking, swimming (when the beaches are unbanned) and cycling is likely to outlast the pandemic.
P: PETS v PHONES (but what about pets trending on phones?): Multiple studies show that pets — dogs, cats, bunnies and maybe even the odd snake? — are good for people’s wellbeing. In SA, trained therapeutic dogs can reduce people’s pain and are being used in rehabilitation centres to promote healing.
University of Pretoria professor Johannes Odendaal, the author of Pets and Our Mental Health, has shown that the levels of positive neurochemicals go up and the levels of stress hormones go down during their experiments with owners and their pets.
So, take your hands off your phone and reach out to your pet to boost your day.
Q: QUIET: “Why don’t you read at night any more?” I asked a doctor friend and author of a popular memoir. The answer: she scrolls through news before she goes to sleep, not a relaxing pastime. Most smartphones link to digital wellbeing apps so use them to switch off for the night. When my phone goes three boring shades of grey, that’s my sign.
R: REMEMBER: Blocking out grief doesn’t make it easier to get over the loss of our loved ones or other sources of pain, including lost jobs and income under the pandemic. Gogo Masechaba says she lights a candle every day to honour those who have died and moved on, and for those who remain behind grieving.
S: SLEEP & SEX: Sleep is one of the pillars of physical and mental health. Without it we fall apart. The Huffington Post founder and editor-in-chief, Arianna Huffington, successfully strikes down the mantra “I’ll sleep when I’m dead” in her book, The Sleep Revolution.
“Today, much of our society is still operating under the collective delusion that sleep is simply time lost to other pursuits, that it can be endlessly appropriated at will to satisfy our increasingly busy lives and overstuffed to-do lists. ...“In fact, getting the right amount of sleep enhances the quality of every minute we spend with our eyes open,” she writes.
So, find your sweet sleep spot — for most adults between seven and nine hours a night — and edge your way towards it. If you need more sleep, aim to go to bed just 10 minutes earlier. And beds are not only for sleeping. Sex is also vital for our immune system and wellbeing.
T: THRIFTING: Buying “pre-owned” and vintage clothes (the term “used” is on its way out) has soared, even in the suburbs and among urban teens. Jackie May, the founder of Twyg, a nonprofit supporting an eco-conscious lifestyle, says: “As awareness about sustainability grows, so does the consumer’s interest in buying second-hand clothes.
Especially for young people, thrifting has become very popular. People are selling second-hand clothes everywhere you look — on social media, street corners, from their homes, at thrifting stores … The downside of it becoming a middle-class pastime is that it has pushed up the prices of second-hand clothes.”
U: UNWIND. On the radio station NPR on January 1 Gretchen Rubin replied to a listener’s query: “I think maybe what Sarah needs is resolutions that let her goof off or take time. If she’s trying to get balance and she’s working so hard she might need to take time for fun. You might have to schedule that like a dentist’s appointment and really carve out time for it because otherwise you are just always filling your time with things from your to-do list.”
V: VACCINATE: For your safety and the greater good, get a Covid-19 vaccine as soon as it is available.
W: WATER OR W(H)INE: Taking a cold shower is a step towards “cold body therapy” which “The Iceman”, Wim Hof, claims boosts immunity. He holds the world record for the longest swim under ice of 57.5m. For the less intrepid, drinking cold water will do. The booze prohibition has anyway catapulted South Africans into “Dry January”, along with some 2.7-million who voluntarily relinquished alcohol for the first month of 2021.
X: X TO XENOPHOBIA: Covid-19 has sharpened the faultlines between many South Africans and the rest of the continent, as well as the developing and developed world. Let’s work together to stop the divisions, fear-mongering and hate, which seem to be spreading virtually as fast as the coronavirus — our common enemy.
Y: YIELD: Like comedian Schall, let go of those unfilled resolutions.
Z: ZOOMING ZOMBIES: When most of the cameras in a meeting are switched off or eyes glaze over, that could signal Zoom overload. Virtual meetings, funerals and social events have taken over our days (and nights) but in-person connections, adhering to social distancing, offer added dimensions. Don’t give up on them, even if your avatar looks better than you do.
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