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Leading 24/7 fitness franchise Snap Fitness is working closely with renowned leader in positive psychology and mood, Dr Tim Sharp to warn Australians that their well-intentioned New Year’s resolutions may be negatively impacting their mental health and are urging the community to ‘remove the resolution’.

Snap Fitness PT Specialist Ben Richards (pictured below right), said each year, people set New Year’s resolutions around getting back into the gym and improving health and fitness but notes “often these goals focus on not doing something, like not eating junk food, or keeping up physically with the ‘fitspo’ crowd.

“We see a huge influx of members in January; however, we see many people abandoning their resolution by 19^th January, even before they’ve given themselves an opportunity to work towards their goal.

“The stress of not meeting our goals then creates a downward spiral of negative thinking. Not sticking with a resolution can often cause frustration and we may end up back where we started.

“It’s time to remove the resolution and work to shift our mood instead by prioritising goals intended to help us ‘feel great’ and avoiding those intended to change, ‘improve’ ourselves or keep up with others.”

Dr Sharp, founder of The Happiness Institute, said feelings-based goals are more motivating, sustainable, and conducive to mental wellbeing than outcome-based goals.

“It can be quite devastating when you set a goal that you cannot achieve,” he said.

“Setting unrealistic New Year’s resolutions is setting yourself up for failure, creating disappointment and frustration.

“For those with a predisposition to mental ill-health, it could even lead to serious depression.

“There’s much research that suggests feelings-based goals are more effective because with outcome-based goals, even if you achieve them, there’s always more to do.

“Removing the resolution and focusing instead on how we feel gets us closer to what’s often referred to as ‘enjoying the journey, not just the destination’, which can be much more sustainable and beneficial for our mental and physical health, especially in the long term.”

Dr Sharp said exercise, diet, nutrition, and sleep each play a vital role in happiness and adds “exercise and activity add to our physical health and wellbeing but notably, they can also play a powerful role as stressbusters and mood enhancers. Diet and nutrition, similarly, contribute because what we feed ourselves, we feed our brains, linking our brain health to our mental health."

To support its members in setting healthy habits instead of unrealistic resolutions, Snap Fitness has launched a series of ‘mood mover’ tools and activities designed to help members improve both their mental and physical health.

Members can follow recipes from an accredited practicing dietitian as part of a Mood Menu – a menu of recipes that incorporate foods that are proven to boost your mood, and participate in mood coaching sessions. Similar to PT sessions, these sessions focus specifically on movements that enhance aspects of your mood including cycling for rapid release of endorphins and serotonin, resistance training to improve cognition and central nervous system function, and yoga movements and stretches integrating body and mind.

For more information on Snap Fitness go to snapfitness.com/au/

All images courtesy Snap Fitness

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