ASK Mariella

Forget new year resolutions – our columnist has practical advice for living your best life

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The idea of 'new year, new you' always makes me feel a bit stressed. Do you make any resolutions? If so, what are they?

By the time New Year comes, I’m just grateful that Christmas is over. Surviving the festive period is surely sufficient reason to pat ourselves on the back and feel relief that it’s another 12 months before we put ourselves through it all over again.

I always think of “new year, new you” as a concept dreamed up by magazines and the advertising industry: a reason to flog us weight-loss gadgets and the like, and perpetually contributing to the idea that we’re never enough.

That said, the new year has been a time of reinvention since around 2000 BCE, when the Babylonians made resolutions in the form of promises to their gods. And the Romans linked January to Janus, the two-faced god of new beginnings.