Let Statistics Help You Make New Year's Resolutions

30th December 2014

Fresh inspiration comes from the Office for National Statistics(ONS) for those wanting to make changes to their lives in the new year.

ONS Director General Glen Watson said "ONS statistics are produced to help people make better decisions, based on reliable information. That's true for businesses and policy makers, and research can help us as individuals too.

As part of its Measuring National Well-being programme, ONS identified various factors people said improved their sense of well-being. But the figures suggest that there is scope for many of us to improve the quality of our lives in simple ways:

Go out with friends - Currently we're only rating our satisfaction with our social lives at 7 out of 10.

Get to know the neighbours - Only 66% of us felt we belonged to our neighbourhood.

Volunteer - Only 17% of people in the UK took part in unpaid voluntary work more than once a year. Even so, ONS estimates that if we had to pay for the work that frequent volunteers do through formal groups or organisations it would have cost the country around £24 billion in 2012/13.

Take time to enjoy the countryside - Only just over half (55%) of people living in England accessed the natural environment at least once a week in the past year.

Make more time for fun - Just over half of us (59%) are satisfied with our amount of leisure time.

Get healthier - Only 59% of us say we are satisfied with our health. The most recent statistics from ONS show that only a third of us take part in regular exercise and 11% of us say we drink at least five times in a week. While the proportion of smokers quitting has doubled in the past 40 years, there are still nearly 9.5 million people who say they smoke."

Watson adds: "the Measuring National Well-being programme started with discovering “what matters to you?" and is now helping to provide a fuller understanding of how our society is doing.”

The measures came under 10 topics including personal well-being, relationships, personal finance, health and what we do. A full list of the measures and the latest results can be found here:
www.ons.gov.uk/well-being