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The Science Of New Year’s Pre-Resolutions

Plus: what polyvagal theory means for how you react to stress

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The 10almonds Team
December 11, 2023

Today’s almonds have been activated by:

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🧠 BRAIN-TEASER

Keep Your Brain Young With Today’s Brain-Teaser

 

The day before two days after the day before tomorrow is Saturday. What day is it today?

(we'll give the correct answer tomorrow)

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⏰ IN A RUSH?

Today’s 30-Second Summary

If you don’t have time to read the whole email today, here are some key takeaways:

  • New Year’s Resolutions are popularly doomed to failure, but science can significantly increase your odds of success

    • Proper planning, mindfulness of Murphy’s law, approach-oriented goals, habit-forming, and the fresh start effect can all help, as well as a special tool to get you through that slump when motivation wanes.

  • Not everyone wants to skip alcohol entirely, but we'll bet you'd like to skip the after-effects!

    • Today’s sponsor, ZBiotics, have a special pre-alcohol probiotic drink that was designed by a team of microbiologists to tackle exactly that.

Read on to learn about these things and more…

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👀 WATCH AND LEARN

This Simple Skill Will Keep You Motivated, Because… (7:07)

Dr. Andrew Huberman on the dopamine responses underpinning the benefits of focusing on the process rather than the outcome:

Want to watch it, but not right now? Bookmark it for later 🔖

✅ MAIN FEATURE

The Science Of New Year’s Pre-Resolutions

There’s a military dictum that “prior preparation and planning prevents p[retty] poor performance”, to paraphrase it very slightly.

Would it surprise you to know that soldiers going on the attack are not focused on the goal? Rather, they are focused on the process.

With drills and mnemonics, everything that can be controlled for in advance is; every action, every reaction, everything that can go wrong, and all the “if x then y” decisions in between pre-battle PREWAR and PAWPERSO and post-battle PACESDO (all mnemonic acronyms; the content is not important here but the principle is).

In short: take Murphy’s Law into account now, and plan accordingly!

The same goes for making your plans the winning kind

If you want your resolutions to work, you may need to make pre-resolutions now, so that you’re properly prepared:

  • Do you want to make an exercise habit? Make sure now that you have the right clothes/shoes/etc, make sure that they fit you correctly, make sure you have enough of them that you can exercise when one set’s in the wash, etc.

    • What grace will you allow yourself if tired, unwell, busy? What’s your back-up plan so that you still do what you can at those times when “what you can” is legitimately a bit less?

    • If it’s an outdoors plan, what’s your plan for when it’s rainy? Snowy? Dangerously hot?

    • What are the parameters for what counts? Make it measurable. How many exercise sessions per week, what duration?

  • Do you want to make a diet habit? Make sure that you have in the healthy foods that you want to eat; know where you can and will get things. We’re often creatures of habit when it comes to shopping, so planning will be critical here!

  • Do you want to cut some food/drink/substance out? Make sure you have a plan to run down or otherwise dispose of your current stock first. And make sure you have alternatives set up, and if it was something you were leaning on as a coping strategy of some kind (e.g. alcohol, cannabis, comfort-eating, etc), make sure you have an alternative coping strategy, too!

We promised science, so here it comes

Approach-oriented resolutions work better than avoidance-oriented ones.

This means: positively-framed resolutions work better than negatively-framed ones.

On a simple level, this means that, for example, resolving to exercise three times per week is going to work better than resolving to not consume alcohol.

But what if you really want to quit something? Just frame it positively. There’s a reason that Alcoholics Anonymous (and similar Thing Anonymous groups) measure days sober, not relapses.

So it’s not “I will not consume alcohol” but “I will get through each day alcohol-free”.

Semantics? Maybe, but it’s also science:

Why January the 1st? It’s a fresh start

Resolutions started on the 1st of January enjoy a psychological boost of a feeling of a fresh start, a new page, a new chapter.

Similar benefits can be found from starting on the 1st of a month in general, or on a Monday, or on some date that is auspicious to the person in question (religious fasts tied to calendar dates are a fine example of this).

Again, this is borne-out by science:

Make it a habit

Here be science:

As for how to do that?

Trim the middle

No, we’re not talking about your waistline. Rather, what Dr. Ayelet Fischbach refers to as “the middle problem”:

❝We’re highly motivated at the beginning. Over time, our motivation declines as we lose steam. To the extent that our goal has a clear end point, our motivation picks up again toward the end.

Therefore, people are more likely to adhere to their standards at the beginning and end of goal pursuit—and slack in the middle. We demonstrate this pattern of judgment and behavior in adherence to ethical standards (e.g., cheating), religious traditions (e.g., skipping religious rituals), and performance standards (e.g., “cutting corners” on a task).

We also show that the motivation to adhere to standards by using proper means is independent and follows a different pattern from the motivation to reach the end state of goal pursuit❞

How to fix this, then?

Give yourself consistent, recurring, short-term goals, with frequent review points. That way, it’s never “the middle” for long:

See also:

Finally…

You might like this previous main feature of ours that was specifically about getting oneself through those “middle” parts:

Enjoy!

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❤️ OUR SPONSORS MAKE THIS PUBLICATION POSSIBLE

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ZBiotics Pre-Alcohol Probiotic Drink was designed by a team of microbiologists to tackle exactly that. Here's how it works:

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(Learn more about their patented bioengineering technology and see their lead microbiologists.)

Whether for yourself or perhaps as a gift for family members in preparation for festivities, this is definitely a great "enjoy, but make it responsible" option!

Safety note: this will not stop you from getting intoxicated; it's just about mitigating the post-drinking ill-effects. But that already makes it well worthwhile!

Please do visit our sponsors—they help keep 10almonds free

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🌏 AROUND THE WEB

What’s happening in the health world…

More to come tomorrow!

📖 ONE-MINUTE BOOK REVIEW

The Polyvagal Theory: Neurophysiological Foundations of Emotions, Attachment, Communication, and Self-regulation – by Dr. Stephen Porges

Do you ever find that your feelings (or occasionally: lack thereof) sometimes can seem mismatched with the observed facts of your situation? This book unravels that mystery—or rather, that stack of mysteries.

Dr. Porges' work on this topic is, by the way, the culmination of 40 years of research. While he's not exactly a household name to the layperson, he's very respected in his field, and this book is his magnum opus.

Here he explains the disparate roles of the two branches of the vagus nerve (hence: polyvagal theory). At least, the two branches that we mammals have; non-mammalian vertebrates have only one. This makes a big difference, because of the cascade of inhibitions that this allows.

The answer to the very general question "What stops you from...?" is usually found somewhere down this line of cascade of inhibitions.

These range from "what stops you from quitting your job/relationship/etc" to "what stops you from freaking out" to "what stops you from relaxing" to "what stops you from reacting quickly" to "what stop you from giving up" to "what stops you from gnawing your arm off" and many many more.

And because sometimes we wish we could do something that we can't, or wish we wouldn't do something that we do, understanding this process can be something of a cheat code to life.

A quick note on style: the book is quite dense and can be quite technical, but should be comprehensible to any layperson who is content to take their time, because everything is explained as we go along.

Bottom line: if you'd like to better understand the mysteries of how you feel vs how you actually are, and what that means for what you can or cannot wilfully do, this is a top-tier book

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Wishing you a peaceful Sunday of mindful preparation,

The 10almonds Team