|  | From Elizabeth Scott, M.S., your About Healthy Monday Editor For many people, this is a week of excitement, but it's a busy week as well. You may not have time to take on many new habits today, but what you can do (with minimal effort, I might add) is notice what you might be missing in your lifestyle, and start thinking ahead about what changes you might want to make in 2014. We will be sending out more resources for setting and maintaining New Year's Resolutions (or New Year's Goals, which can be easier to maintain), but for today, we encourage you to start reading up on the benefits of some of the more popular changes people resolve to make, and thinking about which changes might benefit you the most. (You might even make a few small changes today and this week, but we won't pressure you about it.) This newsletter brings you the resources to get started with your plans. Enjoy your week, and happy holidays! -Elizabeth Scott | | Maintain A Healthy Diet People commonly say "You are what you eat" for a reason--the food we consume can play a huge role in determining our mood, our appearance, and our overall health and wellness. With so many delicious choices that are good for us, we can steer ourselves away from the delicious choices that are less-healthy for us without feeling too deprived in the long term. Today, take a few minutes to consider how you might benefit from a few dietary changes, and make some plans or do some research on what might be the best potential changes for you to make. The following are some resources that can help you to decide. | Exercise Regularly Exercise is beneficial in many ways: it helps with mental fitness, stress relief, and overall wellness, among many other things. It takes commitment to create a regular exercise habit, but it is well worth the effort. Here is some food for thought to help you build motivation. | Prioritize Sleep We may be more aware of the benefits of sleep when we aren't getting enough of it--we start becoming more moody, less able to think clearly, and generally less capable of functioning optimally. But when we don't get enough sleep on a regular basis, or are only moderately sleep-deprived, we may not notice the changes. Learn more about the benefits of sleep, and you may realize that getting better sleep may be a goal worth keeping. | Create a Stress Management Plan Stress is something we all experience, and unmanaged stress can compromise our health and happiness in many ways. Many people are aware that they need help with stress management, but we often wait until we are in crisis mode before we take steps to create a plan. Consider making a plan for minimizing and managing stress, and create goals around that plan now. Here is some food for thought. | | | | Related Ads | | | | Featured Articles | | | | | | | About.com is a proud participant of Healthy Monday SM, a national public health campaign aimed at helping Americans initiate and maintain sustainable health behaviors to reduce risk factors associated with the leading causes of preventable disease and mortality. Healthy Monday is a project of Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. | | | | | Sign up for more free newsletters on your favorite topics | | | | You are receiving this newsletter because you subscribed to the About.com Healthy Monday newsletter. If you wish to change your email address or unsubscribe, please click here. About.com respects your privacy: Our Privacy Policy Contact Information: 1500 Broadway, 6th Floor New York, NY, 10036 © 2013 About.com | | | | More Healthy Changes | | Advertisement | |