Sprinting Towards a Better You

Waking up today was hard. My eyes were heavy, it was already uncomfortably warm, and I had a midterm in three hours. As I stared up at the ceiling, I felt a heavy weight deepening towards the center of my chest cavity. Anxiety; however familiar with the feeling, your body never seems to get used to it. I squirmed over onto my stomach in hopes to redirect the weight outward from my delicate self.      Okay, that helped a little.   I got up and walked into the bathroom, where I found my housemate getting ready for the gym. She asked me if I wanted to come with her for a quick workout. I groaned that I should, but she would need to help me get ready or I’d never get there. Thank God for great friends.

My legs refused to move faster than a slow walk for the first eight minutes, and I couldn’t stop yawning; I think I even made the girl next to me yawn. After about ten minutes, “Are you gonna be my girl” by Jet started playing and I remembered that I had recently added some catchy new songs to my running playlist. I turned it up louder, picked up my pace and started to really get into my run. Walking home from the gym, I embraced feeling the sweat beads drip from my forehead. I pictured them as being what’s left of the anxious weight I had felt this morning, liquidated and now draining from my pores. I felt energized, accomplished, and more confident that, like my run, I too could conquer this day.

            In the past decade, exercise—especially aerobic exercise—has been the focus of hundreds of studies in exploring the positive impact it has on mental illness. Incorporating regular exercise into my routine has undoubtedly been most influential in treating my depression and anxiety. Making exercise a habit may not be as simple as making a cup of green tea each day, but its psychological effects are absolutely invaluable. So how do you stay motivated and keep up a regular exercise regimen?  As noted earlier, social support and an upbeat playlist are two of my daily motivators. Having a workout buddy is a great way to keep you on track because you then have a responsibility to get dressed and go for a run with them. Another tactic I’ve found successful is to wake up and put workout clothes on right away if I plan to workout later that day. It forces me to get those clothes sweaty before taking them off again, or else I feel as though I’ve wasted them; Use that guilt, use it.

            Another way to stay motivated is to avoid boredom. Repeating the same exercises or running the same route for every workout is bound to get boring. Not to mention, your muscles get used to the routine and don’t benefit from it as much. The thing about exercise is that the possibilities are endless; don’t hesitate to mix it up. Get a friend to try out a new sport/activity with you, such as tennis or surfing. Swimming is also a great total body workout. Not a fan of the water? Try out a cool hike, or head to an indoor rock climbing gym. In fact, I was recently catching up with my cousin who has just gotten sober and had also struggled with some mood issues. He told me he’s just picked up indoor rock climbing and couldn’t stop raving about it. One thing he noted about climbing was that it is a very mindful activity—meaning it involved much focused attention on every move being made. For example, you must be constantly aware of your hand and foot placement, and attend to each new placement consciously. Mindfulness training is a popular therapeutic strategy that has been linked with stress reduction and improved mood. Psychobiology researchers Norman Farb, Adam Anderson, and Zindel Segal believe this to result from mindfulness increasing one’s attentional control—acquiring the skill to attend consciously to thoughts, but also the ability to redirect focus away from them (3). Rock climbing forces you to pay focused, mindful attention to your body and its muscles. This is a great example of how exercise can reduce stress and improve your mood. Having fun while doing it is just a perk. So do yourself a favor and mix it up every once in a while to keep yourself motivated and moving.

Lastly, being informed is yet another tool for motivation. Dr. Michael Otto and Dr. Jasper Smits, two experts in the field of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)[1] and mood disorders, point out that knowledge can also provide motivation to exercise, especially when provided with such compelling and extensive evidence of its benefits to our well-being (7). Exercise can help to improve mood by lessening symptoms of anxiety and depression, decreasing feelings of hostility, and increasing the feeling of being connected with others, says Otto and Smits—and that is only to name a few. So next time you’re unsure of a workout, remind yourself of these immediate benefits to help yourself realize, you’re just one workout away from a good mood!             

Works Cited

Farb, Norman A.S., Adam K. Anderson, and Zindel V. Segal. “The mindful brain and emotion regulation in mood disorders.” Canadian Journal of Psychiatry 57 (2012): 1-14. Print.

Otto, Michael W., and Jasper Smits. Exercise for Mood and Anxiety. n.p, 2014. Web. 21 May 2014.

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[1] Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is a kind of psychotherapy with the goal of becoming more aware of one’s maladaptive or negative thinking in order to manage those thoughts and respond in a more useful manner.