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The easy habits and ideas to help you kickstart your new year health and wellbeing plan, whether that’s a training goal or nutritional overhaul

Living Well

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Research shows that the average person makes about 35,000 remotely conscious decisions each day. While many are complete no-brainers, “decision fatigue” is a recognised form of stress. By rationalising your daily routine you can streamline the process and make better choices that will ultimately leave you feeling happier and with more time to do the things that really matter. Read our list below and consider adopting some new practices for better mental (and physical) health.

Living Well

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Even before the past year, the world of work was undergoing a quiet, mobile revolution. A new breed of employees and freelancers were rebranding themselves as digital nomads, and setting up shop on the road – or the beach. Now, as entire industries race to adapt to a world without offices, the revolution is everywhere. Where restrictions permit travel, the pioneers are pushing boundaries and taking their jobs with them. Meanwhile, employers and destinations are working fast to meet soaring demand. But what does the digital nomad need to know before taking off? MR PORTER has consulted a panel of experts.

Living Well

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How can we do more to help those who may be suffering at the moment – whether from mental health issues, or generally feeling a little bit isolated or down (understandable given the year everyone has had)? This is something we at MR PORTER are asking ourselves this week on the anniversary of our Health In Mind campaign. When our mates are going through a hard time, it can be just as tough to figure out how best to reach out, and what exactly to say. Beyond checking in, is there anything else we can be doing? We teamed up with our friends at Movember to come up with 33 ways to be a better friend. Have a read, below, get stuck in, and, if you like, let us know the results over on our social media hashtag #TIMEwithHIM. Stop scrolling. Call a friend. Check in.

Living Well

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With all of the time spent in isolation recently, with nothing but our own internal monologue for company, we may be uniquely well-prepared to begin (and benefit from) keeping a journal. No longer just the pursuit of teary-eyed teenage love-me-nots, or even dissolute travel writers with a Moleskine, journalling has helped some very successful men make sense of the world around them. Mr Bill Gates has one; as did Messrs Thomas Jefferson, Charles Darwin and Henry David Thoreau (whose journal while in isolation at Walden became a classic piece of American literature) and some of history’s best ideas began life as inarticulate scribbles on a diary page. As Mr Alan Ziegler, professor of writing at Columbia University in New York, and author of The Writing Workshop Notebook, tells MR PORTER, “a journal helps us understand the outer world, and explore our inner world. It is a journey of possibility”. He says, “in these strange times, you may find comfort recounting pleasant memories, or what brings you joy; or lay out doubts and unfinished aspects of your life. It can be very good for your mental wellbeing, too.” In journalling, as in everything else, starting is the easy part. But how to carry on, even after everything is back to normal, is all important. Thankfully, the professor has plenty of advice on how to maintain, organise and make the most of your journal during isolation.

Living Well

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Our careers often define us, but in recent weeks, many of us have been forced to reevaluate this notion. Since lockdown, I, for example, a writer by trade, have been mostly horizontal and eating my own weight in brownies. My job has never felt more secondary. Not to mention the fact that working from home really does sometimes mean hardly working. And when you compare your new schedule to what's going on outside your bubble, it can also feel silly. While I see merit in my work as a writer, the importance of my filing copy pales in comparison to the sacrifices being made by thousands of key workers. As the lockdown continues, many of us privileged enough to have time to waste have begun pondering what children’s author and illustrator Mr Dallas Clayton recently summarised in a prescient Instagram post: “What if my job was never meant to define me?”

Living Well