Healthy Monday is a national non-profit public health campaign associated with Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. The campaign encourages people to use Monday as the day to focus on health and prevention. Instead of waiting until New Year’s, your birthday, or an anniversary to make a healthy change, use Monday. That way, you’ll have 52 opportunities make those changes you’ve been trying to make. It’s time to let all health break loose!

Understand the beauty of choosing Monday. Research performed by The Monday Campaigns movement shows that we already treat Monday like a fresh start day, a day dedicated to health and a day most favored for getting your act together. This happens to be a phenomenon cutting across cultures. It is also a day with negative connotations if you’re not enjoying the way you’re living your life, so this makes it another good reason to overcome the reasons for the negativity. Dedicating a specific day to health provides both a call to action and a way for people to increase compliance and impact.

• We tend to organize our lives around the week, starting with Monday. Monday is the day to set goals, refocus, and recommit and it is the day to trigger and sustain healthy behavior.

Limit your saturated fat intake by going meatless once a week. Meatless Monday atwww.meatlessmonday.com is a project associated with the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. This project is about encouraging you to give up meat one day a week and to cut your intake of saturated fat by 15 percent. Doing this can reduce your risk of developing heart disease, diabetes, obesity, and certain types of cancer. That’s a great promise for a new habit this Monday! If you look on the left side of my blog, there is a meatless menu with recipes. Or just Click Here now for this week’s Meatless Menu.

Start exercising. The CDC recommends doing 2 1/2 hours of exercise minimum each week.  The benefits of exercise include improved health, longer life and a boost for your brain power. Use Monday as the day to commit to an exercise routine. Start walking, join a gym, enroll in a fitness class, or even just plan out physical activities for the week and stick to them! Here are some things you can do to help improve your physical activity.

• Decide which activity you’ll start doing regularly. Click Here for a link to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lists of physical activity ideas and tips.
• Create Monday Mile Maps and markers to help others know how far they’re exercising; place these on tracks, paths and other exercise areas designated for Move-It Mondays.
• Encourage others to join in by starting a walking group or fitness class at your workplace or school.
• As a family, get out and exercise together by taking walks or hikes, cycling together, doing indoor sports activities or joining a sports club together; help enthuse one another to be active regularly.

Quit Smoking. Not smoking is one of the healthiest things you can do for yourself. As soon as you stop smoking, you’ll start seeing and feeling the effects. However, it can be hard to get started and commit. That is why the Healthy Monday Campaign recommends that you try and quit on Monday. Instead of waiting until New Year’s Eve, your birthday or anniversary, having a weekly opportunity to recommit to your goal is more likely to succeed. Some things to do include:

• Read the American Cancer Society’s Quit Guide
• Call 1800-Quit-Now
• Re-introduce yourself to people you know as a non-smoker – the new and healthier you
• Encourage others to quit smoking

Begin the week determined to reduce stress in your life. Focus on having a Mindful Monday and bring more relaxation back into your life: (The links are wiki Howto tips click on them they are very helpful.)

• Meditate - meditation can clear out the negative thoughts and worrying clutter in your mind, allowing you to focus clearly on what you really want in life
• Stay calm – when everyone else is panicking, a calm head will win the day
• Learn how to self soothe – getting upset may be a habit but it’s a bad one that prevents you from remaining calm and focused; learning to self soothe can help you to overcome panic, anxiety and negative thought processes
• Familiarize yourself with assertive approaches to dealing with conflict and “difficult” people – this will ensure that you can stand up for yourself and not feel victimized
• Practice deep breathing techniques – this helps with calming, soothing and focusing yourself
• Visualize a stronger and more fulfilled future for yourself.

Click Here for 2011 Healthy Monday Motivators

“Without goals, you are like a ship without a rudder – heading in no particular direction.” -Roy Williams, Head Men’s Basketball Coach, University of North Carolina

We all know about the importance of goal setting and, to some extent, we all set them from time to time. But, guess what, not all goals are created equal. There are many types of goals, and some are more effective than others. Furthermore, certain types of goals may be more beneficial in some situations while others lead to more positive results in others. Sport psychologist Dr. Damon Burton, in his book “Sport Psychology for Coaches,” outlines the different types of goals one can set. At the risk of greatly oversimplifying Burton’s work, below is a summary of two basic goal types:

Outcome Goals

These are the goals you’d absolutely love to accomplish if all the pieces fell into place and you worked really, really hard. Outcome goals involve such statements as “I want to win,” or “I want to lose 20 lbs.” Outcome goals are great. They motivate us and they provide purpose for exercising or practicing so hard. Outcome goals come with some caveats, however. First of all, they do not provide a roadmap for accomplishing a particular goal. Saying “I want to win” delivers no information on what you need to do to actually accomplish this feat. Outcome goals are rigid and leave no room for adjustments. If your only goal is to lose 20 lbs. and you lose only 15 lbs., does this mean you failed? Numerous environmental conditions may occur that hinder your ability to reach your goals. But if you do not accomplish your exact target goal, it does little good to beat yourself down. According to Burton, flexibility is highly important in the goal setting process and outcome goals do not provide any room for error. Finally, outcome goals can be stressful. We can’t always control the conditions that determine whether we reach our goals or not. Worrying about factors that we cannot control places our focus on external conditions, leaving room for “what-ifs.” For example, if you are lining up for a bike race with the goal of winning, much of your goal relies on how the other competitors perform. If you have the best race of your life, but another competitor simply outperforms you, it’s disadvantageous to say that you failed to reach your goal. Sport psychologists refer to setting strictly outcome goals as living in “outcome world.”

Process Goals

Process goals are smaller, controllable goals that provide more information for how to reach our outcome goals. If you have an outcome goal of winning a running race, a process goal might be more along the lines of “I will lengthen my stride by an inch;” or “I will stick to my race plan and focus on just my race.” If your outcome is to lose 20 lbs., you might have a process goal of exercising for 30 minutes each day or decreasing your calorie consumption to the amount of calories you burn per day. Process goals are specific, measurable and controllable. These goals relieve stress because they are related to your own individual efforts. Process goals make reaching outcome goals more likely because they provide specific information for how to improve. Process goals are also flexible. While your outcome goal remains constant, you can adjust your process goals based on progress and degree of difficulty.

How to Set Goals

Whenever you set goals, it’s best to begin with your dream outcome goals. It’s okay to dream big, but your outcome goals should also be realistic. According to Burton, the most effective goals are those that are moderately difficult and represent about a 5 to 10 percent improvement beyond your previous level. If you can run a mile in eight minutes, aim to make your next goal to run it in about seven minutes and thirty seconds or so. Then, once you set your outcome goal, set about three or four process goals that will help you reach this outcome. Make them specific, controllable and within your ability level.

We hear about goal setting all the time, but it continues to be one of the most important, and most effective performance-enhancement tools you can use. While outcome goals are motivating, avoid living in outcome world. Keep your mind focused on specific process goals that are completely within your control.

The time is upon us! Time to prepare for new year resolutions. I am here to help you. Here is the first of a few posts to get you motivated to start 2011 fresh!!

Bad habits that keep you from reaching optimal health, such as smoking, drinking or overeating don’t have to follow you into the New Year. However, if you don’t want these habits hanging around for another 12 months, you must prepare yourself psychologically.

Experts agree that no matter how stubborn a habit you’ve developed, there are ways to break those negative patterns and keep healthy resolutions throughout the New Year. The trick is to keep everything in perspective. Perspective, now I like that!!

“Focus on realistic goals with measurable results,” says Jill RachBeisel, M.D., director of Community Psychiatry at the University of Maryland Medical Center and associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. “You need to break things down into small steps that you can manage.”

For example, Dr. RachBeisel says that, instead of trying to lose 50 pounds, you should focus on losing five pounds at a time. Instead of trying to lose five pounds a week, focus on losing one pound a week.

“Create bite-sized jobs for yourself that you’ll be able to accomplish,” states Dr. RachBeisel. “If your goal is too big, you’ll feel defeated before you even get started.”

When deciding on your New Year’s resolutions, it is easy to get swept up in hopeful yearning. As the clock ticks away the final minutes of the old year, the excitement can be intoxicating. You believe that you’ll be able to tackle your goals effortlessly. But, after the initial rush of New Year’s celebration fades and reality sets in, your ambitions can once again seem insurmountable.

According to Hinda Dubin, M.D., a clinical assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and psychiatrist at the University of Maryland Medical Center, the key to achieving even your most lofty goals is to get started immediately.

“Action precedes motivation, not the other way around,” said Dr. Dubin. “People often think that they should wait until they are motivated to start doing something good for themselves. They say, ‘I’ll start that diet or fitness program when I’m really well rested and have a lot of energy’. But it doesn’t work that way.”

Dr. Dubin says that instead of waiting for inspiration to act on your goals, you need to take action first and inspiration will follow. Your initial action doesn’t have to be anything big. Just by putting on your sneakers and hopping on the treadmill for 10 minutes, you will make that energy you are “waiting” for materialize.

“Once you initiate an action — even the smallest of actions — you pick up momentum and you realize, ‘Hey, this isn’t so bad,’ and it becomes a lot easier to keep moving forward and to stay motivated,” says Dr. Dubin.

Expert Advice

University of Maryland experts offer these additional tips to help you reach your goals:

• Avoid perfectionist thinking. While we certainly always want to better ourselves, it is healthier to think in positive terms than it is to focus on how much we fall short of our aspirations. In other words, students should view the grade of an A- as better than a B, rather than not as good as an A.
• View setbacks as lessons for growth. Mistakes can be, and usually are, opportunities for learning. If you fall short of your goals, ask yourself what kept you from achieving them and then try to make corrections. People who like to sail understand this navigational concept. You almost never go directly from point A to point B. You set a course and periodically take readings of your position then make adjustments as you go along.
• Don’t make absolute resolutions. Keep them realistic. For example, Dr. Dubin suggests that instead of saying you won’t yell at your kids anymore, resolve to yell at them less often.
• Don’t keep your resolutions to yourself. Tell someone you trust about your resolutions. Dr. Dubin says that it helps to share your goals with friends, who can gently nudge you in the right direction when you veer off course.
• Give them some meaning. According to Dr. RachBeisel, people sometimes make goals that aren’t necessarily meaningful to them. Your goal should be something you really desire to change or achieve, not something that society says is good for you to do or your family members would like to see you do. If you don’t have strong, internal motivation within yourself, you won’t be successful.
• Take baby steps. Set realistic goals that are attainable and then take small steps that are likely to be met with success toward those goals. Don’t try to lose 10 pounds in a week or quit smoking cold turkey with no preparation. Instead, try joining a weight loss program and try to lose a pound a week, or join a smoking cessation group.
• Fine-tune your spirituality. Dr. Dubin says that it is important to add a spiritual dimension to your goals. For example, if one of your goals is to get fit, you may also resolve to get outdoors more often instead of going to the gym. Time outside will help you get in balance with nature, and will honor both the physical and spiritual sides of yourself.