Want to feel better, have more strength and perhaps even live longer? Look no further than exercise. One doesn’t have to spend several hours in a gym or force oneself into painful or monotonous activities one hate to experience the emotional and physical benefits. Adding just a little physical activity to one’s weekly routine can have a profound effect on one’s emotional and mental health. Whatever one’s age or fitness level—even if one has never exercised a day in the life before—one can find easy, fun ways to add more movements to the life and begin to look better, feel better, and enjoy the life more.
Importance of Physical Activity for the Human Body
- Exercise can immensely help prevent excess weight gain or help maintain weight loss. When one engages in physical activity, one burns more calories. The more intense the activity, the more calories one burns.
- Physical activity stimulates many brain chemicals that can leave one feeling happier and more relaxed. One can also feel better about one’s appearance and oneself when one exercise daily, that can boost the confidence and improve the self-esteem.
- Regular physical activity can boost the endurance and improve the muscle strength. Physical activity and exercise deliver nutrients and oxygen to the tissues and help the cardiovascular system act more efficiently. And when the lungs and heart act more efficiently, one has more energy to go about one’s daily chores.
- Daily physical activity can help one fall asleep faster and deepen the sleep. Just do not exercise too close to bedtime, or one may be too energized to fall asleep.
- Regular physical activity can leave one feeling energized and looking better, which may have a positive effect on one’s sex life.
Best Ways to Motivate Yourself for Exercise
How to motivate yourself to exercise is something that everyone needs to know! Knowing how to motivate yourself to workout will have far greater impact on you than you ever thought. The body will look, feel, and function like its brand new when you start exercising on a regular basis. Here are our best tips on getting to know how to motivate yourself to work out.
Give Yourself a Real Reward
Many people might be motivated by vague goals like “weight control” or “better health”. But if that is not doing it for one, it has been advised that making benefits of working out more tangible, such as by treating oneself to a smoothie or an episode of “The Leftovers” afterwards.
It has been described that creating a neurological “habit loop,” that involves a cue to trigger behaviour (setting out the spinning shoes next to the bag), the routine (making it through the spinning class) and then the reward. An extrinsic reward is so powerful because the brain can latch on to it and make the link that behavior is worthwhile. It enhances the odds the routine becomes a habit.
Over time, the motivation becomes intrinsic, as the brain begins to associate sweat and pain with the surge of endorphins — the feel-good chemicals released in brain that are responsible for that “I-feel-freaking-amazing” rush one get after a great gym session. Once one has trained the brain to recognize that the workout itself is the reward, one won’t even want the treat.
Sign a Commitment Contract
We can make many promises to ourselves all day long, but it has been found that we are more likely to follow through with pledges when we make them in front of relatives or friends.
It has been commonly found that men and women who signed longer contracts ended up exercising more than men and women who agreed to shorter durations. One has to get past the initial experience of displeasure in order to recognize the longer-term benefits. The challenge is designing the tools to help make that happen.
Rethink Positive Thinking
Devotees of positive thinking have promoted visualizing the immense benefits of a behavior as the motivational strategy. After one imagines the obstacle, one can figure out what one can do to overcome the problem and make an effective plan. But such feel-good fantasies are effective when accompanied by realistic problem-solving methods.
After identifying the wish and visualizing the outcome, one has to identify what’s holding one back -this technique is called “mental contrasting. Feel extremely tired to go to the gym after work? After you imagine the problem, you can figure out what you can do to overcome the obstacle and make a plan. For example, you can switch to lunchtime or morning workouts or go straight to the gym instead of stopping at home first.
Feeling Amazing
We always feel so wonderful after a great run. Not just physically, but mentally as well!
One will be in a better mood as the brain releases feel-good hormones while one is being active. Also, there is the stress release factor, and then there is just you feeling good about yourself for doing something healthy!
More Energy
Amazing as it may seem, working out more often will provide one more energy. When one gets active, the body will be extremely tired, but re-charged and completely ready to go the next day.
The energy levels will be soaring in the morning. One will notice that feeling sluggish halfway through the day is not happening anymore!
A Workout Buddy
Knowing how to motivate oneself to work out means knowing the perks to having a workout buddy.
Having someone to motivate, encourage and push one forward will keep one driving on when one feels like stopping or giving up. Sometimes, we are capable of pushing through another 20 minutes; we just need the right encouragement.
Losing Weight
If one wants to know how to motivate to work out, this is an excellent motivator! We all have that extra 7 or 8 pounds we would love to shed, right? Once one starts working out, one will begin to lose weight. The progress can be slow at first, but one will notice it!
Don’t you like receiving compliments on your appearance? I mean who doesn’t! Once you have these effective tricks down on how to motivate yourself to work out, you will start getting compliments left and right.