How to reboot your body ahead of the New Year.

“Fitter/ Happier/ More productive/ Comfortable/ Not drinking too much/ Regular exercise at the gym, three days a week.” Radiohead frontman Mr Thom Yorke could have been making a list of New Year’s resolutions for 2019 when he composed the lyrics to the bleakly prophetic track “Fitter Happier” from seminal 1997 album OK Computer (supposedly in just 10 minutes – productive indeed). Had he foreseen the full extent of today’s wellness industry, he doubtless would’ve been even more melancholy.

Far be it from MR PORTER to reinforce disturbing neoliberal ideologies of individual responsibility, self-discipline and self-actualisation: you’re more than OK as you are. But it’s nevertheless possible that, come January, you may find yourself feeling “like a pig in a cage on antibiotics” and wanting to make some positive changes to your operating system in order to, dare we say, better yourself (for purely personal reasons rather than out of any societal pressure). In which case, you may find the following advances in the sphere of health and fitness to be advantageous – and not depressingly unenjoyable.

Augmenting your workouts with video screens or headsets may sound gimmicky, but there is a practical application: you can cue up a “class experience” on demand. And a study by Penn State University demonstrated that Mr Les Mills’ “immersive” cycling class The Trip increased participants’ satisfaction and reduced their perceived exertion – how hard they felt it was – versus an audio-only class, even though the actual intensity was the same for both. Presumably that’s because the bells and whistles take your mind off the physical suffering – and the fact that all you’re really immersed in is a pool of sweat.

The equal and opposite reaction to all the boutique fitness studios pushing High-Intensity Interval Training is an emphasis on pulling back. If you work out like athletes, you also need to recover like them, whether with NBA superstar Mr Kyrie Irving’s Theragun – basically a power drill with a massage attachment – or Mr Steph Curry’s flotation tanks, which are surfacing at more and more gyms. New studios are dedicated entirely to recovery, from power naps (see more on sleep below) to High-Intensity, Low-Impact Training (Hilit) that elicit results without leaving you feeling so beaten up.

Far from a “rest week”, vacations are now an opportunity to make further gains – or cram in all the exercise that you were too busy to do in the rest of the year. Equinox is hosting its first retreat in 2019, “a summit-chasing adventure in Morocco”, with yoga in India, running in Ethiopia and hiking in the Adirondacks to follow. Not only that, the healthista club group that helped pioneer fitness-as-lifestyle is opening its first hotel, in New York. Blue World and Virgin Voyages meanwhile are changing the (body) image of cruises as all waistline-torpedoing buffets and octogenarians, with five-star floating fitness facilities.

Snoozing is no longer losing: indeed, a deficiency of vitamin Zzz puts you at increased risk of obesity, heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes and dying earlier from falling asleep at the wheel or other causes – to say nothing of irritability and brain fog. The wellness industry is waking up: Fitbit has introduced a sleep score, Apple bought mattress sensor manufacturer Beddit and hipster supp company Hims sells gummies with nod-off hormone melatonin. A study by UCLA showed that Equinox’s new sleep coaching improved the performance in and fat-loss results from its personal training.

According to Mr Cal Newport, academic and author of new book Digital Minimalism, smartphones are “slot machines”, and your time is money for the tech giants. So the smart call is to switch to a “dumbphone” – one that can only ring and text. You can still take advantage of useful tools such as Google Maps (and less useful ones like social media) via tablets and laptops: you just won’t have them at your itching fingertips. What you will have is more time on your hands for “high-quality leisure” (activities more fulfilling than endless, mindless scrolling) and maybe even some Deep Work (Mr Newport’s previous book).

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