Most people are aware of how important exercise is in order to live a healthy and balanced life, but that doesn’t mean that they necessarily reflect that knowledge in their activities. This isn’t a point of criticism but rather a demonstration of how difficult it can be to put your health forward when you lack the time or energy amidst your other responsibilities.
There are plenty of ways to change that, though, meaning that you can begin to reap the wide variety of benefits that exercise has to offer you. Even if it feels like a chore at first, finding your rhythm might have you feeling much more positive about yourself overall.
1. A Reward System
At first, when you’re struggling to find any motivation at all to get yourself exercising, it might just be about giving yourself a carrot on a stick. If you do an hour of exercise, you’ve earned an hour of relaxation. You might even find that this relaxation becomes all the sweeter when you feel as though you’ve earned it.
These rewards don’t have to be anything lavish – you don’t want to feel as though your luxuries outweigh the good that the exercise is doing you – just standard pastimes that you enjoy. If you’re someone who enjoys gaming or playing the various games that are available through online ones like Big win, that might be all that it takes. Spending some time unwinding with them after you’ve gotten your daily exercise can exemplify the enjoyment you already get from them.
You might also find food to be a good motivator. In fact, if you time it right in the day, you might find that dinner often follows your post-work exercise window, which can be the perfect way to relax when you’ve finished all of your responsibilities for the day.
2. Exercise with Friends
It’s easy for the time that you spend with your friends to become routine. If you don’t see them very often, then you understandably want to make sure you’re making the most of the time you have together. The idea of using this limited window to exercise might not make much sense, especially if nobody involved typically enjoys it, but you might be thinking of exercise as the sole component of this shift. It’s not about replacing everything that you enjoy with a more active equivalent; it’s simply about making exercise something that’s a more natural and regular part of your life.
If you meet up with your friends and it’s a nice day, going for a long walk together that ends with a picnic can include all of the regular highlights – spending time with your friends and sitting around enjoying yourselves – but now you’re all getting exercise in a novel environment. You can take this further if you want to, playing sports like tennis together does not require many people and can be an effective form of exercise, but if you’re going to go that route, you might find that it’s a good idea to find an activity or sport that neatly intersects at everyone’s interests.
3. Exercise as Fun
Throughout this, you might not have considered the possibility that exercise could be something that you come to really enjoy. That doesn’t mean you’re going to become someone who absolutely lives for the gym, but you can look at your own interests and expand on them in order to take a more active approach. Exercising with friends can already show you why this might be fun, but it can be that way by yourself as well.
Take running, for instance. This isn’t something that many people find enjoyable, and it’s often seen as a very practical or functional way to exercise. However, if you find a route that takes you on a serene route at a time that’s quiet and scenic, you might find that you begin to get a lot out of this. Furthermore, you can throw podcasts or music into the mix to make this a time to enjoy content that you don’t otherwise have time for. Similarly, you don’t need your friends to make your exercise social. If you’re really passionate about a particular sport, you might find yourself looking to join local teams or getting into competitions, though there’s no pressure to take it to that level if you don’t want to. While yoga might be gentle exercise, for example, that focus on the more meditative aspects might make it what appeals to you – so it’s about finding your way into your own enjoyment.
4. Cutting Out the Short Drives
When looking to make positive changes, it can be valuable to look at how you can double up and use this as an opportunity to make changes in other areas as well. For example, vowing to walk or cycle more regularly goes hand in hand with cutting out short drives. If you’re someone who will drive down the road to go to the shop, you could be contributing to a very avoidable negative impact on the environment. This walk can not only avoid this problem, but it can also get you into the habit of exercising more casually. Over time, you might find that you don’t even consider your car for these kinds of occasions anymore, instead resorting to walking or cycling again and again. This might also lead you to other environmentally motivated decisions, such as getting public transport instead of driving more regularly, but it’s also valuable to understand that cutting back to any degree is progress, and there will be times when driving is unavoidable.
Taking your attention away from driving as being the sole way of getting around might also mean that you spend more time on long walks or hikes that focus on natural areas where roads wouldn’t normally go. Seeing more of the natural world is something that might feel as though it neatly complements the more environmental push of using your car less, too, which might be a shift that you enjoy.
