Read the WHITE PAPER - 'The Neuroplasticity Flaw'

"In the 1990s I built a successful health club chain and set up one of the UK's first NHS GP Exercise Referral networks. My peers and I were convinced we would produce healthy nations. But 30-years later preventative health approaches have clearly not materialised into long-term behaviour change. So, I wanted to identify precisely what is sabotaging these protocols. On paper they should scientifically work - but they don't. As I began to dig deep into the evolutionary neuroscience it became very clear why these approaches are unlikely to ever succeed - unless we (the preventative health sector) start to acknowledge and address the neuroplasticity flaw that holds them back." 

Dr Julia Jones, Holidity

 

Since 2019, neuroscientist, sport and exercise scientist, and Holidity founder, Dr Julia Jones, has been examining the reasons that 50 years of huge diet, fitness and wellness trends have failed to stem the ballooning health crisis.

As diet and fitness sector revenues have grown over the decades, so have average waistline sizes and the epic scale of the chronic physical and mental health crisis.

Why don't they work? And why are we still recommending them?

The 5-year R&D period was funded by private investment through the EIS-scheme in the UK and through paid-for pilots in collaboration with corporate employers.

The outcome of the R&D was the clear identification of a limitation within typical preventative health protocols that we now refer to as the 'neuroplasticity flaw'.

Click here to read our final White Paper published in September 2025

In summary:

1. What is 'neuroplasticity'?

  • The human brain automates repeated behaviours (habits) through a biological process, termed neuroplasticity
  • This is an evolutionary design that conserves energy consumption (because brain activity is complex and consumes a lot of calories)
  • This neuroplasticity process physically changes the structure of the brain's neuron cells so they become more efficient at sending and receiving neurotransmitter chemicals from other neurons nearby 
  • The neurons traffic receptors from the cell body to the outer membrane of the their dendrites to increase the connectivity
  • As this process (termed 'long-term potentiation') gradually progresses these specific networks of neurons become highly efficient at communicating with each other to produce the required behaviour more easily and efficiently
  • If the behaviour stops being regularly repeated during the early days/weeks/months the neuron transports the receptors away from the membrane and back into the cell body - thus reducing the connectivity ability
  • Critically, this biological wiring process cannot be shortened or side-stepped and requires frequent repetition of the desired habit over a very prolonged period (typically several months) before that network is strong enough to continue as the ongoing automated behaviour now requiring a lot less conscious effort from the prefrontal cortex to perform

2. The Neuroplasticity Flaw

  • Typical diet, fitness and wellness approaches are based upon very high effort behaviour-change actions
  • History shows that without substantial human accountability support most individuals will struggle to sustain that effort long enough for the neuroplasticity process to progress to full automation stage
  • Consequently, individuals only achieve short-term habit change and drift in and out of these high-effort approaches
  • Thereby, neurologically cycling between cellular phases of long-term potentiation and long-term depression states at the dendritic fields of the neurons in the specific neuronal network being wired for that particular habit

3. The Holidity Platform

  • We identified that frequent and prolonged human support, not digital, produces the greatest likelihood of sustained effort. Therefore, increasing the chance of the neuroplasticity process advancing towards stable automation
  • We then built a platform that could enable public health leaders and corporate employee wellness teams to affordably provide low-friction human support at scale on a daily basis
  • It deploys the single daily check-in message from the human accountability partner directly to each user individually via WhatsApp for minimum friction and maximum open rates (98%)
  • Our simple emoji response system enables the user to engage in just seconds and receive a gamified weekly check-in score
  • Our 2024 pilots achieved a 69% retention rate at Week 12
  • 1-year after the daily check-ins ended, 7/10 of our pilot users were still doing their health habit
  • It's simple and it works

 

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