BREAKING BAD (HABITS)

It is one psychological hurdle after another. We’ve all successfully navigated Fail Friday – the day in the third week of January when we’re most likely to give up on all our New Year’s resolutions and slip back into our old, unhealthy ways – only to be faced with Groundhog Day. Originally itwas all about the date – February 2 – when a giant rodent predicts whether there’ll be an early spring or six more weeks of a cold, harsh winter in America. But it’s no longer associated with that, thanks to the hilarious 1993 movie starring a less-than-perfect Bill Murray.

In it, he has to relive the day over and over until he changes his ways, and so now Groundhog Day is forever associated with repeating our mistakes. That’s why, experts say, it’s the perfect time to break our bad habits once and for all.

From biting your nails, to hitting the gymand stepping away fromthe cakes (or cheese in my case), we’ve rounded up all the expert advice to create our wellness issue and make 2016 the year you become your perfect self and get out of your Groundhog Day groove.

And the good news is most of them are tiny changes that we can make without having to sacrifice too much. How hard is it to reduce our social media use down to one hour a day, for example, or tell our friends what we plan to give up so that they can call us out when we’re tucking into a chocolate bar instead of fruit on day two of our diet?

Find out how you can beat all your unhealthy habits on page 32. We also reveal why keeping a journal is good for your physical and emotional well-being, on page 40. If all thatmakes you anxious – well, it might be your character. Find out what the different types of stress personalities are in our fascinating feature on page 36. No prizes for guessing that I’m a drama queen!

Until next week,

TINY changes are all that’ s needed. How hard is it to reduce SOCIAL media used own to ONE HOUR a day, or TELL friends about our DIET so they can call us out when we’ re having CHOCOLATE instead of FRUIT?