Billy Joel wrote a song a couple of years ago called, “You’re Only Human—you’re allowed to make your share of mistakes.” As both the semester and calender year draw to a close, many people will choose to reflect on their humanness and possible changes in their lives. The following are offered by Health Enhancement Services as guidelines to promote healthy resolution-making and lifestyle changes.

View your resolutions as a personal wellness checkup. Just as automobiles require regular servicing to maintain and improve performance, individuals need periodic checkups to move forward in an ever-changing environment. Too often people equate personal wellness with only the physical dimension and view health as a combination of body parts (muscles, heart, nervous system, etc.) In doing so, other equally important dimensions of wellness are ignored: social, emotional, mental and spiritual.

Explore ways to achieve balance in all dimensions. High_level wellness is never static. The alternatives to moving toward higher levels of wellness include premature death/disability, chronic signs and symptoms of illness and feeling only “okay.”

Focus on accomplishments you have achieved during the previous year rather than on what you haven’t. Babe Ruth is well remembered for his home run record, not for striking out far more frequently than hitting home runs.

Recognize the present as “your starting place” or, as Kenneth Blanchard, co-author of “The One-Minute Manager Gets Fit,” calls it “your starting news.”

Look for long-term, low-cost solutions to stress. Psychologist Philip Comer writes that stress has become a catchword for the total combination of life’s demands and pressures, frustrations, disappointments and environmentally self-imposed tasks and deadlines that everyone experiences. Whether a freshman completing your first semester, a graduating senior or someone in-between, as a college student you find yourself in an environment that is challenging, exciting, demanding and “stressful” in both the positive and negative sense.

The best way to handle the challenge, Dr. Comer writes, is to not only meet it, but to use it as an opportunity for learning. Effective and creative stress management is a valuable lesson that extends beyond the college years. Immediate benefits can include enhanced performance on tests and exams, increased energy and better control of negative emotions like anxiety, anger, depression and physical symptoms of stress such as tension headaches and insomnia. Long-run payoffs can result in improved quality of life and increased longevity. (The stroke or heart attack that happens at age 55 may have had its origins when the individual was 18 and seemingly “immortal.”)

Beware of counter-productive, short-term solutions to problems. These often incude tranquilizers, sleeping pills, alcohol and cigarettes. Long-term as well as low-cost solutions include adequate rest, exercise, time-management, relaxation.

Be specific and realistic. Make changes you will be able to live with permanently. For example, rather than announcing, “I have to lose 30 pounds before spring break,” say, “I will walk for 30 minutes at least three times a week, and I will substitute healthy low-calorie snacks for junk food.”

A main reason popular weight-loss resolutions fail is because traditional diets typically do not contribute to learning new behaviors, attitudes and lifestyles. By focusing on time limitations, strict calorie limits and drastically restricted menus, they create only a temporary, artificial change in one’s life that is neither life-long nor lasting.

Avoid the tendency to change everything at once. Trying to implement many changes immediately can be overwhelming and lead instead to frustration and discouragement rather than progress.

Consider telling a friend of changes you want to make, suggest Drs. Jane Burka and Lehora Yuen in “Procrastination.” Plans, once verbally expressed, no longer exist only in the imagination. Telling them to someone helps to make thoughts more real and can be a step toward bringing them to life as well as clarifying just what your ideas are.

For more information about free campus resources to help you in the above areas, contact Health Enhancement Services at 753-9755.