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Can A Trauma-Informed Approach Help People Stick to New Year's Resolutions?

As the calendar turns to February, over one third of people will have given up on their New Year’s resolution. In fact, the official “Ditch Your New Year's Resolutions Day” was over two weeks ago, a sign that abandoning resolutions has become every bit as culturally embedded as making them. There is no shortage of reasons why people do not carry out their resolutions—not making time in their schedules, being unsure of where to start, inertia. One reason I would like to see become a larger part of this discussion is the impact of past experiences.

At first glance, it may not seem clear how something that happened years or decades ago can affect a person’s attempt to declutter their e-mail inbox or not eat as many sweets. However, the theory that past experiences may shape current behaviors was what led to the seminalAdverse Childhood Experience (ACE) Study, which established the connection between traumatic events in childhood and negative health outcomes later in life. In 1985, Dr. Vincent Felitti, then chair of Kaiser Permanente’s Department of Preventative Medicine wanted to investigate why 50 percent of people were consistently dropping out of his obesity clinic. He interviewed close to 300 people who had left the weight loss program and found that a large majority had been sexually abused as children. Many reported that gaining weight was a protective mechanism as they believed that it would cause past or potential aggressors to overlook them. Since then, subsequent research has linked ACEs to a plethora of health and social problems, all the while strengthening the perceived role that coping mechanisms can play in habit formation.

[Read more at: http://scattergoodfoundation.o...olution#.VrNkIDYrKRs]

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