Do you get your five portions of fruit and veg a day and eight hours’ sleep a night? How about that step count? Are you hitting the 10,000 mark? With so many wellness goals out there, maybe it’s time to explore their usefulness and origins and aim for a more personalised approach

 

In a world that prizes measuring and quantifying, you’re probably familiar with certain health and wellbeing goals. Whether it’s what you eat and drink, your daily step count, how much sleep you get or the number of days you take off work, it can seem like there’s always something to be aiming for. Some people monitor their progress towards hitting certain health targets with the help of fitness trackers, smartwatches and apps. But these goals can come with a flipside of inadequacy whenever you end up falling short.

Have you ever struggled with insomnia after putting pressure on yourself to get eight hours’ sleep? Or walked in circles round your house or garden last thing at night in a bid to hit 10,000 steps? Perhaps it’s time to bring an end to these arbitrary targets and instead strive for a better understanding of individual needs when it comes to optimum health. A person’s age, sex, weight, height, lifestyle and energy requirements all have an impact.

Lee Chambers is a psychologist and wellbeing specialist from Manchester, north-west England. He says that numbers-based targets appeal to people because they’re a ‘specific, measurable outcome that provide a clear sense of direction’, adding that they enable you to ‘track progress, compare and monitor, give an increasing feeling of control and set a benchmark to try to continuously improve beyond’. However, it’s important to remember that they’re often designed to suit an average person, rather than an individual’s requirements. ‘They’re not tailored to people’s specific needs and lives, yet they’re touted as the gold standard,’ says Lee. ‘[But] goals that are unrealistic or don’t take into account personal abilities or circumstances can leave people feeling disappointed in themselves, ashamed or guilty that they’re not attaining the standard.’ In turn, this can affect self-esteem or confidence. ‘It also has the potential to make people hyper-focus on achieving that particular target,’ adds Lee, ‘[while] neglecting other things that can be beneficial to wellbeing. [Yet] we are all on our own journey, and numbers form just one part of measuring that.’