Resolutions Revisited

HealthDay – 1 hr 1 min ago FRIDAY, April 6 (HealthDay News) -- Three months into 2012, chances are good that those grand plans for self-improvement hatched at the start of the new year have become more of a dead weight.

Many people vow to eat less and exercise more; stop smoking, drinking or spending too much; and better organize our wayward lives.

Research in the Journal of Clinical Psychology has found that only 64 percent of New Year's resolutions are maintained after one month and, six months later, less than half still stand.

Why the swift breakdown?

"People make resolutions that are not necessarily well-coordinated to either their ability or to reality," said Peter Herman, a psychology professor at the University of Toronto. "We know that when people make resolutions in the first place, merely making the resolution energizes them. That emotional positivity is really hard to sustain when you get in the hard slog.

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