Updated 30th March 2023
Launching the Habit Tracker
For many of us, January is a time to turn over a new leaf and make changes to our habits and lifestyles. We recently ran a poll on social media, and 40% of you told us that you’re planning on developing new habits with the start of a New Year.
Science shows that resolutions which focus on making big changes over a long period of time often don’t work.
This January, we’ll be launching the ZOE Health Study Habit Tracker, which allows you to log new health habit goals and track your progress.
Sharing your experience in the app — alongside your normal reporting — will help both you and us understand how your lifestyle changes affect you. You’ll also contribute to our research into the science of habit changes across the population.
What’s the ZOE Health Study Habit Tracker?
We want to investigate the impact that small lifestyle changes may have on people’s mood, energy, hunger, sleep quality, and daily health symptoms.
The Habit Tracker allows you to track one of seven health changes you may be interested in, these include habits relating to:
diet
sleep
movement
stress management
How can you get involved?
We’ll be inviting all our contributors in the U.K. — who log for themselves — to use the Habit Tracker, found in the ZOE Health Study app. The only exception is those of you who are currently taking part in The Big IF Study.
To use the Habit Tracker, you’ll select one health habit you’re adopting in the ZOE Health Study app. You’ll then get to pick how long you want to track your new habit.
We recommend tracking for at least 12 weeks. But it’s up to you, and you can stop tracking your new habit any time.
Each time you report your daily symptoms, we’ll ask about your new habit. Specifically, you’ll be able to report your sleep quality, your energy and hunger levels, your mood, and how easy or difficult you found keeping your health goal on the previous day.
You’ll also have the chance to extend how long you want to track your habit, if you’d like to.
We understand that you might not log every day. Life is busy; it’s fine to miss a few days.
And it’s OK if you don’t stick with your health goal. By participating, you’re contributing to our science. And that includes studying how many of our contributors achieve the new habit goals they set for themselves in the app.