Specific goals key to sustaining New Year resolutions, says Worcestershire senior health practitioner
People traditionally set themselves goals at the start of a new year for what they'd like to achieve in it
A Worcestershire public health expert has highlighted the importance and impact people sticking to their New Year resolutions can have on their wellbeing.
Tradition sees people make pledges on a variety of things in terms of what they would like to do over the next 12 months at the start of a new year, such as wanting to quit smoking.
Getting more active is also listed as another example, with organisers of Worcester's parkrun confirming it had set another attendance record with 1,178 finishers on Christmas Day, nearly 200 more than its previous one a year earlier.
Senior public health practitioner for Worcestershire County Council's public health team Katie Deeley has said the New Year almost acts as a 'psychological refresh' and there's ways people can make sure they aren't missing out on achieving their goals.
"What people tend to do is they'll do it for a few weeks and then it might kind of drop off, so the things that we tell people to do is kind of make sure that you've got goals that are within your comfort zone or just outside of it," she said.
"So set those milestones and goals, it might be just going for a 10-minute walk every day or it might be moving more every day but be specific.
"Not necessarily I'm going to go out and run a marathon, but you might want to take part in a couch to 5K programme for example which is a good kind of slow build up to a 5K run so small goals and targets that are specific but also within reach."