Effects of Reasons for Exercise: When Good Intentions Point the Wrong Direction
My friend Dave has exercised regularly for a decade, but he finds it painfully boring. Dave says he runs for 30 minutes on a treadmill during his lunch break at work, but his favorite lunch breaks are when he skips his run for his bi-annual dentist appointment. Does exercise really have to be a chore? Good news– research shows fixing our attention on a particular set of reasons can increase enjoyment of and motivation to exercise.
Attention During Exercise
What reasons do you fix your attention on during exercise? Common examples include outcomes like regulation of body weight, improvement of health, and prevention of disease. While these outcomes carry good intentions, from a motivation and exercise adherence perspective, they pose a problem.
What’s wrong with exercising for health benefits?
The problem is NOT that exercising to achieve outcomes like health benefits is wrong. These are great reasons to exercise! However, fixating on the idea that happiness or fulfillment only come from achieving a desired outcome via exercise is where the problem lies. It leaves us feeling like exercise is a chore or a job that we have to do. This mindset causes us to miss out on an opportunity to enjoy the time we are exercising.
Instead of exercising only for the outcomes, enjoy your exercise journey each day.
Focus on the Process Not the Product
When we acknowledge physical activity as a mindful practice that we can enjoy in and of itself, we move away from the idea of exercise as a mindless chore. For example, we can:
• Notice novelty. Instead of acting as a robot, notice what is new in your exercise environment.
• Purposely notice what is enjoyable in the environment (e.g. sounds, sights, positive emotions).
• Notice what works best. After noting what you enjoy, choose exercise that is the best match for you including: the exercise duration, intensity, mode and whether or not you like to exercise alone or with others.
• Learn to accept some negative thoughts. Practicing mindfulness means our choices are no longer being dominated by unwanted and unmotivated exercise thoughts and feelings. We do not need to be victims of our thoughts. Instead, we can choose and act independently. We can accept that we may have some negative thoughts but we can still make a choice to exercise.
Summary
Bringing mindfulness into our lives can be difficult. Any time we aim to change a pattern of thinking or behaving it requires effort. However, we can choose how we respond to our own thoughts. As the saying goes, we can bloom where we’re planted. We can enjoy exercise when we live in the present moment and focus on the journey instead of fixating on the outcomes.
Thanks for reading! 🙂
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Reference:
Baltzell, A., & Cote, T. (2018). Mindfulness. In S. Razon & M. L. Sachs (Eds.), Applied Exercise Psychology. (399-416). New York: Routledge.
Cherubibi, J., & Anshel, M. (2018). Alternative Models of Health Behavior Change. In S. Razon & M. L. Sachs (Eds.), Applied Exercise Psychology. (49-65). New York: Routledge.
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