Are New Year's Resolutions Worth It?

Do you make New Year's Resolutions? Do you swear that you will lose weight, exercise more, stop smoking, have more patience, read more books, all on the stroke of midnight as one calendar year flips to another? And if you do make them, do you keep them?

We've all read articles or heard news reports on how to keep resolutions, how to make achievable goals, and how to be good to ourself if the resolution falls through - but is there a point to making the resolution in the first place? Yes and no. It depends on why you are making them - because you should or because you want to.

Making life changes can be difficult. Bad habits are not easy to break and good habits may gradually become part of our life.  They aren't an instant result from one thought. Habits are formed over time, so it is to be expected that bad ones will take a while to break and good ones a while to form. Making a resolution to change something because of a change in a date may not make that much sense, unless your resolution is really to start making the change, rather than expecting the sudden and complete change.

Preparation

It may be too late for this January 1st, but it seems the people who are best at keeping their resolutions are those who prepare ahead of time. Smoking cessation experts often tell their clients that they need to pick a "quit date." The date can be a week away, a month away, or six months away, but the point is for them to have something to work towards. This can be the same for any type of life change. Preparing for the change, setting things into motion that will help direct the change, will help you be more successful.

One thing at a time

Resolutions like "getting fit," usually involve more than one life change at a time. Getting fit usually requires a change in eating habits, an increase in physical activity, and perhaps other changes, such as cutting down on alcohol consumption, working less, and carving out more time for fun activities. That's a lot of stuff to change in one sitting. And if you have set out to change all that, chances are that you're setting yourself up to fail.

What is more realistic? Change one thing first.

Give yourself a timeline and pick one change, perhaps the easiest so you can feel what success is like. Say that you are going to cut down how many evenings you stay late at work and set yourself a two- or three-week goal to show yourself you can do it. Once you find yourself getting home earlier than you used to, add the having more time for fun. Perhaps you can use the time to cook yourself healthier meals, leading towards your goal of eating a more healthy diet. It makes much more sense to change your diet before you start pushing your body with more physical exercise than the other way around, doesn't it?

Now that your new, healthier eating habits are taking hold, you're not as stressed from working late every night, and you have more time at the end (or beginning) of the day, maybe this is a good time to start on getting more exercise. And so the changes go. One change leads into another and increases your chances of success, unlike being overwhelmed with making a bunch of difficult changes all at once.

Choose your own new year

Your life changes don't have to be on January 1. January is when the gyms and diet franchises do so well - people join in droves so they can start trying to keep their resolutions but many drop off within weeks, if not sooner. Why not make your changes for February 5? March 16? April 27? That's what I did. July 1, 2012, I decided it was about time I got serious about getting fit. Although not seriously overweight, I was out of shape. Part of this was fibromyalgia-related, but part of it was just laziness and it was time for me to get moving. On the first day of July, I began eating in a more healthy manner. Because I don't eat a lot of junk food or snacks, that part wasn't hard, but what was difficult for me was being sure I drank enough water (I may have been a camel in a previous life) and eating more servings of fruit and vegetables.

After two weeks of my new eating habits, I joined a local gym. Because I was already eating more healthy food, my body wasn't making two adjustments at once: diet changes and new exercise regimens. And for the first time, I was successful in my endeavour to get fitter. I ended up going to the gym every day and within five months, I lost over 20 pounds. I was stronger, my fibromyalgia pain was less and my fibro fatigue wasn't as intense.

You can make life changes. Just don't feel pushed into making them on New Year's Day. Make them when they feel right for you, when your chances of succeeding are best.

National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women in Canada

December 6 will always be a difficult day for many people in Montreal, Quebec. It was the day, 23 years ago, when 14 young women - students - were murdered in a Montreal university because they were women. This horrific day gave rise to the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women on November 25, the first of 16 days of activism against gender violence and December 6 is marked in Canada to remember those 14 women.

I remember this day well, December 6, 1989. My own daughter was a week shy of being 10 months old. I was holding my infant daughter while other mothers and fathers were learning of the deaths of their daughters. It was a dark, snowy, cold night in Montreal. I can still see the television reports. I can bring forth the images of the reporters standing outside the university, shocked at what had just happened. The images of ambulances and police flashed on the screen, and I sat in my small living room, in the safety of my suburban home, holding my daughter in my arms.

Twenty-three years later, women are still being injured and murdered. Malala Yousafzai, a teen whose "crime" was to want girls to be educated, was shot in the head by men who feel threatened by a woman's desire to learn and be better. A few days ago, Kassandra Perkins was shot, several times, by her NFL boyfriend, the father of their child. Girls and women are assaulted and raped all over the world. In some countries, rape is a weapon of war.

It's been proven, time and time again, that communities thrive when their women are educated. The standard of living improves, citizens live longer and healthier lives, and societies develop and move forward.

Most men are good people. In my opinion, most men are horrified at the thought of violence against any other person, man or woman. But this horror hasn't stopped the violence. It hasn't stopped the murders, the rapes, the assaults. It hasn't stopped some societies from performing genital mutilation on girls and forced marriages. It hasn't stopped some men from intimidating and abusing women psychologically, emotionally, and physically.

You may have noticed that I don't write the names of the people who committed the crimes I mentioned. They do not deserve to be mentioned, but the names of women who have been injured or killed because they are women - they do deserve to have their names heard. If you have a name to add, you are welcome leave it in the comments section.

And now, for the 14 women who died 23 years ago today, you are remembered:

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Geneviève Bergeron
Hélène Colgan
Nathalie Croteau
Barbara Daigneault
Anne-Marie Edward
Maud Haviernick
Maryse Laganière
Maryse Leclair
Anne-Marie Lemay
Sonia Pelletier
Michèle Richard
Annie St-Arneault
Annie Turcotte
Barbara Klucznik-Widajewicz

Worldwide, Women Still Lacking Access to Contraception

Birth control can be a hot button in political circles, but there is no doubt that family planning cuts billions in healthcare costs and saves lives around the world, says a report from the United Nations Population Fund.

In 1994, the international community got together and agreed that family planning should be accessible to all who want it, regardless of where they live. However, the most recent research shows that there are still millions of women in both developing and developed countries that do not have this access. They either don’t have the information and education that would allow them to decide if they would like to use contraception, or they don’t have physical access to it.

Women who bear many children within a short time have higher risk of staying in poverty. The women have to make limited funds stretch, have limited access to education, which could help their children be healthier in the long run, and the women have limited opportunities to earn money. Poverty often leads to higher mortality rates.

A study published in the International Journal of Gynaecology and Obstetrics in 2005 found that when pregnancies were spaced by three to five years, infant mortality could be reduced as much as 46 percent in the developing world. According to the Population Fund report, “A study from Colombia, for example, illustrates that the local availability of clinics and hospital beds and increased family planning expenditures per capita are associated with lower child mortality as well as lower fertility across women in urban areas. In the Philippines, the presence of a family planning programme had direct effects on children’s health. Improved access to reproductive health, improved spacing of pregnancies, and a reduction in the number of risky pregnancies in Bangladesh all combined to reduce child mortality and improve child survival.”

Financially, billions of dollars could be saved globally if family planning were the norm for those who want it. The report states that a $4.1 million investment in family planning for women in the developing world would eliminate the almost $6 billion spent on maternal and newborn healthcare costs.

Sadly, the plight of women and newborn health isn’t a popular topic. While millions of dollars are put into research and treatment of infectious diseases and others, like cancer, reproductive health is far behind. “Sexual and reproductive health has lost ground to ‘competing’ health issues, such as infectious diseases, because the field has failed to persuade power brokers — such as policymakers and donors — to increase funds,” wrote the report’s authors.

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Model Christy Turlington established Every Mother Counts in 2010. Check out her organization to learn more about maternal health and poverty.

Maternal health ties in with my work with Sepsis Alliance. Women who die in childbirth or not long after often die of sepsis (Sepsis and Pregnancy), as happened just recently in Ireland, to Savita Halappanavar. Women need to be aware of their health and they need to be in control of their health. Please help spread the word.

You Don't Have to Look Sick to Be Sick

Just a quick fly-by post today. An article I wrote on fibromyalgia: "You Don't Have to Look Sick to Be Sick: Understanding Fibromyalgia" is now available online (on page 25) and in print.

I hope this piece will help bring  a bit more understanding to a misunderstood illness.