You’re ready to ring in the new year with your special someone. Does that mean you’re ready to make healthy resolutions together, too?

Focusing on health together is a good idea, but it can be tricky, experts say.

“Spouses or partners have powerful influences on one another’s physical activity, dietary behavior and sleep in particular,” said Dr. Courtney Polenick, an associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Michigan Medical School in Ann Arbor.

Overall, being in sync on healthy resolutions can be “a little challenging,” Polenick said. But she and Holt-Lunstad offered ideas on how to go about it.

1. The right attitude >> The key to a successful couples resolution, Polenick said, is to look for ways to support one another.

“You definitely would want to start it more in terms of something positive that you can do together, not like, ‘Hey, I think you’re lazy, so we should do more physical activity,’” she said.

If exercise is your goal, for example, she suggested approaching resolutions with an attitude of, “Hey, we could both be a little healthier. What are ways that we can incorporate more physical activity into our routine and help one another to be more active?”

2. Start small >> “Sometimes people can take on too many things with New Year’s resolutions,” Polenick said. So start with baby steps and grow from there.

Say you resolve to take a walk together every evening. Aim for a few nights a week at first instead of every night, she said, to make sure that works for both partners before adding more.

3. Work together >> A shared resolution to, say, get enough sleep each night would certainly be healthy, Holt-Lunstad said. Sleep is essential for heart health, and most adults need seven to nine hours, according to the American Heart Association. But insisting that everybody go to bed at the same time could be a challenge if one person is a night owl and the other a morning person.

“But if you can come up with shared goals, and you’re doing it together, it increases the likelihood of success because you’ve got each other to keep each other accountable,” Holt-Lunstad said.

4. Be supportive >> The idea of being supportive of one another’s needs is important if one partner makes a healthy resolution that the other can’t share, such as a nonsmoker who wants to help a partner quit smoking. (Almost a third of deaths from coronary heart disease are due to smoking and secondhand smoke, according to the AHA.)

In such a case, Polenick said to ask your partner, “How could I support you?” That support might take the form of helping your mate find healthy forms of stress relief, such as exercising together or spending time with friends.

5. Ease stress >> A good relationship can help buffer negative health effects of stress, Holt-Lunstad said.

But if you’re looking for resolutions to help one another relax, remember that not everybody will approach problems the same way. Researchers call this sort of awareness “partner responsiveness,” Holt-Lunstad said. “It’s about being responsive to your partner’s needs” and realizing that might look different from your own needs.

“In some cases, your partner just wants you to listen and validate and maybe not solve their problem,” she said. Other times, they really do want help figuring out a solution. Finding the best way to be supportive requires listening to your partner to understand how to help.

6. Get socially active >> A life partnership is often the most important relationship an adult will have, Holt-Lunstad said. But it’s not the only important relationship.

“Research does suggest that having a variety of types of relationships is important for health and well-being,” she said. So agreeing to nurture such social connections could be a healthy joint goal.

7. Spend time together >> One of the key ways couples influence one another’s health, Holt-Lunstad said, is by giving each other meaning.

“So when it comes to a New Year’s resolution, think about encouraging people to think, ‘How am I prioritizing my time?’” Holt-Lunstad said. “Because oftentimes we end up prioritizing our time on the things that don’t matter as much to us in the bigger scheme of things.”

8. Self-care can count >> Caregiving is another way partners end up supporting one another’s health. It’s a labor of love, Holt-Lunstad said. But caregivers can be so focused on caregiving that they neglect their own needs.

Resolutions that help you take care of your own health aren’t selfish, she said. It’s a form of saying, “I want to be around for my partner and be able to be healthy, so I’m going to take better care of myself.”

American Heart Association News covers heart and brain health. Not all views expressed in this story reflect the official position of the American Heart Association. Copyright is owned or held by the American Heart Association, Inc., and all rights are reserved. Distributed by Tribune News Service.