New Year's Resolutions
The latest suggestion is to use January as a 'comfort bridge' into 2008 because'cold turkey' is not always the answer after Christmas binging.
Research commissioned by Sainsbury's amongst over 1500 Britons shows a nation struggling to deal with the pressures & stresses that New Year typically brings.
More than 6m Brits say their Christmas is hampered by the thought of the looming New Year and it's diets, health regimes and hard to keep resolutions, while more than 12million of us suffer some degree of New Year blues.
The research also shows that we are almost three times more likely to fail than succeed with ambitious lifestyle overhauls in the month of January with just 6% of Brits succeeding compared to 17% who have failed. 14million UK adults say they are more successful at making positive changes to their lifestyle outside of the depressing January period.
Women are particularly likely to suffer from New Year stress, one in five of whom say the thought of New Year diets puts a dampener on the festive season, while the number of Brits who greet the New Year with open-armed enthusiasm are resolutely in the minority - just 17% of us say we welcome the post-New Year period.
So what's the answer? Well 42% of respondents said that they would be more successful in improving their overall health if they used January as a transition period between the excesses of Christmas and the onset of a new year.
Top of the 'to do' list is socialising, curling up in front of the fire and savouring the remnants of the festive food... all of which makes the cold dark nights of January eminently more palatable.