Dear Valued Patient,

In today's issue of HealthWise...

--How to Keep Your New Year's Resolutions...
--Fun Facts about New Year's Day...
--And more!

How to Keep Your New Year's Resolutions I love January! It's a time of fresh starts and new beginnings. And if you're like most of us, you've got a New Year's resolution or two to make 2009 a success! Well, regardless of whether you're hoping to get in shape, stick to a budget, or conquer a bad habit, here are some tips and techniques to help make it happen. 1. Get started immediately. Don't procrastinate! Motivation isn't necessarily going to come magically without any effort on your part. In fact, it's often the other way around; as you begin to force yourself to take action (even if it doesn't seem all that fun at first), you'll start establishing new behavior patterns and seeing results. THAT will help keep you motivated over the long haul. 2. Start small. That doesn't mean you have to give up all your favorite foods and run on the treadmill for 5 miles a day right off the bat. Make small steps: cut out high-calorie soda drinks, walk for 20 minutes, etc. This way, you'll be able to gradually replace bad habits with good ones without burning yourself out too quickly. 3. Don't be a perfectionist. You may not live up to your loftiest ambitions all at once; but learn to enjoy the journey as opposed to getting down on yourself for every mistake and slip-up. 4. Improve in bite-sized chunks. Keep your goals realistic, attainable, and make sure you have short-term benchmarks on your way to your long-term vision. For example, if you resolve to rid yourself completely of debt, don't wait until your car, credit cards, and student loans are all paid off to celebrate. Whenever you pay off a smaller debt, congratulate yourself and feel good about the progress you're making. 5. Share your resolutions with a trusted friend. It helps to have someone you love and trust who can hold you accountable. Make sure you choose someone who will help you stick to your guns...and not give you an "easy out" when the going gets tough and you feel like quitting! I wish you all the best in your endeavors this New Year! Yours in Health, Dr. Dee Stevens Stevens Chiropractic Website

Fun Facts About New Year's Day Here are some facts and figures about the last of the holiday season's offerings--New Year's Day! 1. The new year hasn't always begun on January 1st. It wasn't until 46 B.C. that Julius Caesar declared January 1st New Year's Day, so that the calendar would more accurately reflect the seasons than previous calendars. Even still, in the Middle Ages, they changed New Year's Day to December 25th (to coincide with Christmas), and later they changed it to March 25th (in honor of the Anunciation). Finally in the sixteenth century, Pope Gregory XIII revised the Julian Calendar and put the New Year back on January 1. 2. New Year's is probably the oldest of all holidays still celebrated. It is thought that New Year's Day was first celebrated around 2000 BC in ancient Babylon. Their New Year's celebration lasted as long as eleven days. 3. Being born on New Year's Day is often considered a sign of luck. Some well-known lucky people with birthdays on New Year's include: JD Salinger (author of Catcher in the Rye), Betsy Ross (seamstress of the first American flag), J. Edgar Hoover (director of the FBI under every president from Coolidge to Nixon), E.M. Forster (author of A Room with a View and Passage to India), and Paul Revere (who shouted, "The redcoats are coming!" during the Revolutionary War). 4. The words, "Auld Lang Syne" mean "old long ago"--or, "the good old days." Although this song has a reputation for being song no one really knows all the lyrics to. 5. "Happy New Year!" in 6 different languages. Bulgarian: "chestita nova godina!" Spanish: "propsero anyo nuevo!" Vietnamese: "cung-chuc tan-xuan!" German: "prosit neujahr!" Chinese: "chu shen tan!" Hindi: "niya saa moorbaark!" Stevens Chiropractic Website

May 2009 be your happiest, healthiest, most prosperous year yet!

Yours in Health,
Dr. Dee Stevens & all of us here at Stevens Chiropractic