Abba and Avicii rang in 2014
The most popular music among Swedes celebrating the new year? Avicii. According to daily Expressen, which looked at statistics from Spotify, Avicii and Abba topped the lists of most played when the clock struck midnight. The most popular song was Abba’s ”Happy New Year;” and, Avicii’s ”Wake me up” (Read more about Avicii, listen to The hit song of summer 2013 whose hit ”Hey brother” was also played as 2014 first saw the light.

Keeping your resolutions
Many Swedes look in the mirror when they make their resolutions. The visual makes up for 80 percent of these resolutions, actually. Our bodies (and to a degree also our health) is what we put in focus during the last minutes before the clock strikes midnight on December 31. According to a Sifo survey, the two most popular resolutions in Sweden are: eating better or healthier (48 percent) and working out (42 percent). Unfortunately the same survey shows that 80 percent fail to keep these resolutions going. Jimmy Englind is a personal trainer at Sats, and he says one of the main problems is that many people start out too hard to succeed: ”If your goal is to work out three times a week, and you currently don’t work out at all, then that change is too much. Begin with a goal to work out once a week the first month, and if you succeed with that, increase to twice a week the next month, and so on. With this method the risk of failure decreases,” he says. He also believes that you should think about what exercising really means to you: ”Do not let exercising have to do with the way you look. Instead put up goals of what you would like to be able to do, such as running a mile or do a handstand.”

Fewer new businesses in Sweden
Business as usual? Perhaps, but fewer businesses have started. In 2013, 60,527 new companies were registered in Sweden, which is a decrease of 2 percent compared to the year before, according to TT.