I'm going to be honest: I'm a bit of a stress case. Though one could argue that I have an excuse for being one (caring for two small children isn't the easiest thing in the world, after all), it's something I don't like about myself - and something I resolved to change this year. It was rather fortunate timing, then, when I had to interview two Stanford stress experts for a piece my colleague and I wrote on New Year's resolutions. I received some practical tips and was also reassured that it's okay if I slip up once in awhile:
"With any resolution you make, you’re going to drop the commitment over and over and over again," said Mark Abramson, DDS, who runs stress-reduction courses at Stanford. "If your deeper commitment is to take care of yourself, you can get back to the resolution and actually make slipping up part of the process."
Our article provides tips on two other common subjects for resolutions: diet and exercise. And for more ways to make resolutions stick (the new year isn't yet a week old - don't give up!), this 2008 NPR interview with clinical psychologist John Norcross, PhD, is a good read.
