editor’s Note: Podcast Chasing Life with Dr. Sanjay Gupta explains how to stay motivated to exercise. you can listen to the episode Here.
In the middle of winter in the Northern Hemisphere, the days are cold, dark, and short. This is not an inspiring time to achieve much of anything, much less them. New Year’s resolutions May it inspire you a lot on 31st December.
Early backsliders may have already given up on it. 2024 According to the Pew Research Center, twenty-eight percent of people have given up on at least some of the resolutions by the end of January, and 13% reported that they have given up on all resolutions. survey.
Of course, health-related resolutions, such as exercising more, are often at the top of people’s lists of resolutions, according to a voting By The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Getting more physical activity is a worthy goal: Science has proven time and again that activity is beneficial to our overall physical health – it improves our mental well being and contributes live long And happiness.
Still, just being aware of the benefits doesn’t always mean sticking to a resolution to exercise more day after day.
“If people know exercise is good for them why aren’t they moving their bodies?” Psychologist Diana Hill recently posed with CNN’s chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta on his podcast, Chasing Life. “We know it’s good for us physically. …Death rates go down, cancer rates go down. But only a quarter of us are actually doing it.”
When it comes to starting to move, Hill said, many people are able to come up with a number of reasons for not doing so — whether it’s the common excuse “I don’t have enough time” or the more specific “I’m on my feet all day.”
“There are a lot of internal barriers, psychological barriers to moving our bodies,” he said.
Hill’s recent book, co-written with biomechanist Katy Bowman, is “I know I should exercise, but…: 44 Reasons We Don’t Exercise and How to Overcome Them.” Hill and Bowman discuss all the reasons people use to avoid exercise, work through how the brain is trying to trick you, and explain how to overcome that particular trap.
You can listen to the full episode Here.
“Motivation is more of a wave rather than a consistent thing,” Hill said. That said, you could sign up for an afternoon exercise class after listening to this podcast in the morning, but by the time the class starts, your motivation may already be low.
How can you maintain your motivation to exercise during the dreary days of February and beyond? Hill has these five tips.
A major reason people don’t exercise is that they feel they don’t have enough time, Hill said.
He explained that this excuse actually has more to do with a person’s relationship To Time.
“The movement has been fragmented into free time,” he told Gupta on the podcast. “Many of us feel like we have to choose: ‘Do I go to the gym after work, do I ride a bike or do I go to get groceries?'”
Hill encouraged people to shift from this “either/or” mindset to a “both/and” mindset, opening up more possibilities.
“We can integrate our exercise and our activity into the time that we have,” he said. “When I’m at the airport, I’ll carry my bag up the stairs like a farmer.”
She uses her time at her son’s baseball games to cheer him on by walking around the field instead of sitting on the sidelines.
Your perception of how much time you think you have – a concept also known as “richness of time“It’s all about how you’re spending your time,” Hill said.
“The richness of our times is scandalous,” she said. “When we’re doing meaningful things, we feel like we have more time.”
By moving your body more intentionally, she said, you may feel like you have more time on your hands as a result.
Knowing that exercise is good for physical and mental health may not be motivating enough for some people.
“It needs to be individualized and personalized for you,” Hill told Gupta.
Achieving better health is a motivating factor to become physically active for her 77-year-old neighbor, who had a heart attack in her late 60s. “I see that guy running down our street every day around 12 o’clock,” she said.
But Hill isn’t always motivated by knowing that movement will help improve her health. Spending quality time with his 13-year-old son motivates him. He asked her to join him on his upcoming middle school bike trip – a trip she was afraid of, because she was afraid of “going out of control” and falling off her bike.
He told Gupta, “It was that moment where, wow, I’ve written a book on movement, and I’m not willing to move my body because it’s too scary.” But she used her inner motivation and said yes.
The few weeks he spent with his son, learning from him how to ride a bike, were special and translated to other parts of his life as well.
“I’m also learning about myself, how to teach myself something, how to do something outside my comfort zone in service of something I care about,” she said. That said, it’s good to pause before automatically saying no to things in life because they’re scary or they’re inconvenient.
Create a space that actively leads you to physical activity instead of the couch, even if you’re coming home tired after a long day at work.
Hill’s home has a TV room, but instead of a couch, it has a basketball hoop and two rings hanging from the ceiling, he told Gupta, adding that when he and his family watch sports, they also play with the pros.
Although that kind of extreme solution may not be right or available to everyone, you can take a simple solution like quitting your walking shoes From the front door. This way, you can wear them and take a walk outside without any internal debate.
As a bonus, exercise will produce good feelings by increasing levels of dopamine and serotonin, two mood-enhancing neurotransmitters, which will reinforce the behavior.
It’s natural to have concerns about your body image or your athletic ability, Hill said, so be kind to yourself.
How can you be self-compassionate? Imagine you’re talking to yourself the same way you would talk to a friend or loved one, Hill recommends. For example, what would you say to your daughter who is embarrassed by the way she moves her body during yoga class?
“When you’re self-compassionate, you’re kind, you’re mindful. You bring your attention back to what’s happening right now,” he told CNN.
Self-compassion also comes down to our shared humanity, Hill said. Many people in that yoga class may be struggling with something—perhaps an image issue or chronic pain—but what’s going on beneath the surface may not be obvious. Hill said she suffered from an eating disorder when she was younger and struggled with excessive exercise to burn calories.
“Many of us feel like we’re not normal, but that’s because there is no normal,” she said. “When you treat yourself with kindness, you can look at other people with kinder eyes, too.”
Make your commitments small enough that you can accomplish them each day and build from there.
If you get home after a long day, can you put on your sneakers and take a walk outside for two minutes instead of 10?
Hill said that every hour, during a 10-minute break between clients, she stretches her body or walks around the proverbial block. These 10-minute bite-sized sessions add up to a 60-minute workout when she does it six times a day.
Ultimately, physical activity isn’t just about improving your health, he said, it also helps you become who you want to be and how you want to contribute to this world, which will impact the people in your life.
He said, “If you want inspiration that lasts, make it a bigger inspiration that’s bigger than yourself.”
We hope these five tips will help keep you motivated to exercise all year long. listen to the full episodeHere. And join us next week for a new episode of the Chasing Life Podcast.
