“Secret Formulas” for vitality, the NEW WAY, 2026
Our attention is caught by the word SECRET. Research on health and vitality informs us that “secrets” are actually common-sense practices that enrich and safeguard our health. Vitality practices (which are honestly not “secret” ) include pillars of health, also known as “lifestyle medicine”.
The key 6 key health pillars you likely know are: exercise, nutrition, stress management, social support, sleep, and avoidance of harmful substances such as alcohol, tobacco, and drugs. These lifestyle “pillars” are your medicine cabinet for vitality.
Reflect on your health, and which pillars need reinforcement or boosting?
Each year, we are prompted to set lofty goals and boost our health, and then in March, typically, gym participation and “dry January/no alcohol “ fade away, and we return to our prior habits.
Vitality boosters such as improved nutrition, exercise, enriched social support, and quality sleep require a change of habits. There needs to be a shift, a slow process, reinforced and sustained over time, to become your NEW WAY, 2026 and beyond.
Here’s what you need to do to create your NEW WAY:
Get granular, specific, detailed IN A VISUALIZATION of what you want to achieve, AKA your Goal. Take some time for reflection, somato-emotional assessment, new ways of self -talk, and surrounding yourself with support to ensure success vs failure. A deep emotional tap root and motivation are your foundation for growth, so start heart-centered and aware of your feelings. Aim for positive benefits to motivate you.
If you are still reading this, ask yourself: What are the NEW WAYS I desire to live, for vitality?
Consider Your NEW WAY: Vitality boosters, mind-body spirit benefits to aim towards:
Good sleep: Full battery charge, energy
Social support: A happy heart, connection
Stress management: Resilience, survival, calm
Nutrition: Nourishment, immunity, beauty
Exercise: Mobility and functional fitness for life
Release from alcohol, tobacco, recreation drugs: improved social connections, sleep, reduced stress levels, empowerment, money-saved.
Choose your top priority and make your plan.
Use online guides, apps, counselors, coaches, fitness instructors, group classes, friends, mentors, and spiritual leaders as resources and support. They can offer pathways and skill sets to improve your foundational pillars of health, enhancing mind, body, and spirit, for vitality.
Your brain is your best motivational “app” with millions of nerve connections and command centers, ready to reflect, guide, and empower you with a shift into new habits, action plans, and positive results!
Apps are very popular, but results from using them alone, with no other support, are often not enough. Research on apps for increasing physical activity, daily vegetable servings, and improved mood, mindfulness, and self-compassion show only 25-30% of people have some benefit with app use. Adding social support in classes, connections, coaches, and other behavior change experts will enhance your probability of success.
I have benefited from social support with friends, family, and colleagues, exercise support via fitness with friends (beach walks, dancing), classes (Tai Chi), and sampling classes on YouTube. My app on my Fitbit watch has helped with sleep quality, and I find great stress management via the daily Calm app or Insight Timer, which offer movement, meditation, mindfulness, and music, with options to save favorites and attend live sessions.
Nutrition as nourishment is easy to find online and in old-school cookbooks. I am adding botanical medicine for all its applications, via books, and training.
I am doing DRY JANUARY to change a typical nightly glass of wine (or two!) habit that can impair my brain and body, disrupt my sleep and sleep and provide no real stress management. My Fitbit watch/app shows lower deep sleep and more episodes of waking with even 1 glass of wine. Good sleep is critical for cognitive and metabolic health.
My membership on integrative health platforms (AIHM, im4us, IWHI, and the APTA) all provide conferences and holistic medical education with compassionate health and healing practices. I am grateful, inspired, and supported by these groups, which are tribes of positive changemakers, caring for the care-providers and their patients.
Cheers to your health in the Year of the Horse!
Schedule with me for a consultation. I also have a robust roster of professional and allied health resources for you– online and local.
Check out body-safe exercise foundations, meditation, mindfulness, and yoga on my YouTube channel.
References
Milne-Ives M, Lam C, DeCock C, et al, Mobile apps for health behavior change in physical activity, diet, drug and alcohol use, and mental health: Systematic Review, https://mhealth.jmir.org/2020/3
Oscarsson, M., Carlbring, P., Andersson, G., & Rozental, A. (2020). A large-scale experiment on New Year’s resolutions approach-oriented goals are more successful than avoidance-oriented goals. PLOS ONE, 15(12), e0234097. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0234097
