Exercise

Contributors: Andrea Hunsaker, Jared Warren, Perry Giles

Andrea's Story: "Running to My Best Self"

Like everyone, I’ve had my ebbs and flows with my exercise habits. And I won’t sit here and tell you I absolutely look forward to it every day now, but I’ve made it to a point where I do it anyway. Want to know how I got here? Knowledge. Sure, I know it’s good if you do, and bad if you don’t, but I’ve learned, over time, just how good it is for me, and bad for me if I don’t. I’ve met exercising me and she’s a brilliant, delightful, easy-going rock star. I’ve also met non-exercising me and she’s, well, more of a back up dancer, wishing the song was over so she could go home already. I’ve learned I need exercise. And I’ve learned how to get myself to do it consistently.

Not that there isn’t an inner debate every time it’s time to go; the shoulder angel rooting for exercise against the little devil arguing for everything else I ‘need’ to do. And every one of them seems easier than a workout. But here’s where my knowledge tips the scale. It’s not only the knowledge of all the diseases I’m dodging and how essential it is for my brain and mood. It’s knowledge from experience (aka wisdom) that exercise better equips me to tackle all those other things, and knowledge from experience (wisdom again) that it’s actually not as hard as it seems it will be when I’m looking at my shoes waiting to be laced up. Here’s my trick: In that moment when it’s time to go and I’m thinking of all the ways to get out of it, I tell myself, “I’ll just walk, cut it short, take it easy this time”. The angel knows all she has to do is get me out the door.  

I’m not lying to myself. I really do go easy when I feel like it. But once I get started, I actually want to move. As I go, I work at a pace that is comfortable to my body, always giving myself permission to walk the hill if it starts to feel anything like torture.  My goal isn’t to push myself to the limit.  It’s to have an enjoyable experience in body and mind. Enjoy it so you’ll go again tomorrow, that’s my mantra. You’d think with that mind-set I’d do less every day and finally end up calling a walk to the refrigerator my workout.  But actually, knowing I’m in charge diffuses my rebellion and I run farther and do sprints because when I’m in the workout, I like it, and each day my body is more conditioned and my mind is empowered. 

Have you ever noticed your state of mind during exercise? Next time you are out there, try taking your focus off your body and bring it to how your mind feels. Do you feel more powerful, in control? Do you have a more positive outlook during and after the workout than you did before it? There is a scientific explanation for your mood swing.  

We still have much to learn about what goes on in the brain during as a result of exercise, but what we do know is compelling enough to launch us off the couch and never miss a workout again. We know physical exercise improves the body and wards off a host of bodily diseases.  But less understood is the fact that exercise actually physically changes the brain. Your brain is you. Your ideas, personality, mood is all sitting there between your ears.  If your brain isn’t in top working order, then neither are you. I’d always thought my brain was doing just fine up there in my thick skull. Reading, problem solving, Sudoku, that’s all it needed to keep sharp. Not so. In reality, without bodily movement the brain shrinks. Physically active people actually have bigger brains. Exercise builds the brain’s infrastructure by creating new neurons, and causing the connections between neurons to grow, not only bolstering memory, attention, and problem solving, but improving mood and countering stress. Exercise makes you smarter and happier. 

Running gives me a  general positive feeling, an optimistic mindset, a feeling of power, freedom and control. “Look at how amazing I am,” I think. “Look at what I’m accomplishing.” Whatever stresses I’m experiencing are dulled, my mind is clear and problem solving comes easier. I’ve had some of my best creative ‘aha’ moments in the middle of a 4 miler. The rest of the day is more productive. I’ve noticed I’m less reactive in my relationships. My husband and I had been working on finishing our basement for two years. We just couldn’t work together. He was just so unreasonable. We’d be down there arguing about bamboo flooring or carpet (obviously bamboo!) and I’d finally throw up my hands and storm upstairs. The project stalled. Then I started running every day and he changed. He was suddenly agreeable and the project is moving forward... strange. 

Exercise is a tune up for my brain, my personality, my me between the ears. It helps me to function at the higher end of my God given range of ability. I like exercising me. She’s who I think of in that moment of ‘to run or not to run’. It’s the knowledge that I can spend the day with her - my best self.

--Andrea Hunsaker is a Fitness Coach in Grand Rapids, Michigan

The Benefits of Exercise

The physical benefits of exercise are so numerous and seemingly obvious that we risk boring you by covering them. Our emphasis in this module is on the many benefits of exercise beyond physical health; however, physical health is such an important aspect of a person’s overall quality of life that it bears emphasizing. For starters, this engaging video by Dr. Mike Evans is a good foundation for understanding the importance of this topic:

To highlight:

• The best preventative medicine that makes the biggest difference to your health is exercise.
• Low fitness, or ‘sitting disease’ is the strongest predictor of death.
• Just ½ hour of exercise per day, mostly walking, greatly reduces the risks of arthritis, dementia and Alzheimers, diabetes, hip fractures, anxiety, depression, fatigue, and the negative consequences of obesity, and improves overall quality of life.

So, yes, there are all kinds of great health outcomes that go with regular exercise, but this probably isn't news to you. You are probably already convinced that you should exercise regularly, but if you don't, can we explore why that's the case? No guilt tripping here; just an opportunity for self-discovery. Be honest with yourself now: When you do exercise, what are your primary motivations? Is it something like: "I don't want to be fat" or "I want my body to look good"? No shaming from us if this is true for you, but if exercise isn't a regular part of your life, would you be willing to experiment with some alternative motivations? In the sections that follow, we'd like to convince you that exercising is just as important for your brain (including your mood and emotional well-being) as it is for your body. What if you exercised not to look a certain way, but because it made you better at living your life? And if a better body followed as a happy side effect, you'd take that too, right? This module will help you learn why exercise is one of the most effective strategies available to boost your happiness and overall well-being, and how you can make it an enjoyable lifelong habit.

Stress and Anxiety Reduction (My Boss as a Mastodon)

From an evolutionary perspective, human brains evolved with an effective system to protect ourselves. In the face of danger, the brain calls the body to action with physiological responses enabling quick action. Your heart rate increases, blood pressure rises, and you feel a surge of energy. Commonly known as the fight or flight response, this automatic reaction loads the body and brain with adrenaline and cortisol in order to rapidly respond to threats. It works great for acute (temporary) stressful situations like running from predators, and kept us alive to see another day. The problem today is the response hasn’t quite learned the difference between a charging mastodon and a room full of peers waiting to hear your presentation. (And there’s where the urge to run out of the conference room came from.) If stress was meant to get us moving, it’s not a stretch to conclude that exercise is nature’s antidote to stress. And we have the science to support that assumption.

In our hunter gatherer days, stresses were quickly resolved. We either got away or we didn’t. Today’s stresses are often prolonged and call for a cool head instead of a body ready for action. A looming deadline at work, a strained relationship, financial worries; the daily pressures of life are unavoidable. These pressures induce muscle tension, insomnia, sickness, and exhaustion on the mind and body, and can activate a vicious cycle in which the mind becomes stressed, inducing physical sickness, which, in turn, causes more stress. Just ask a bullied baboon. 

A study of baboons by Robert Sapolsky and his colleagues at Stanford University reveal the damages of chronic stress. Normally, baboons on the lower end of the social hierarchy keep their distance from dominant males. But, in a year of a booming baboon population, villagers in Kenya caged many of the animals to keep them from destroying their crops. The subordinate baboons were locked up with the dominate males (unable to exercise), and many died—apparently from stress. The unfortunate animals had ulcers, colitis and enlarged adrenal glands. Most notable, when their brains were examined scientists found extensive degeneration of neurons in their hippocampus, the area of the brain responsible for learning and memory. The chronic stress had grave effects on both their bodies and minds. Stress leads to the release of the steroid hormone cortisol. In the short term, cortisol helps the brain cope with the stress and actually improves cognitive performance. However, if too much of it hangs around for too long, cortisol begins destroying the connections between the nerve cells and leads to cell death, damaging the hippocampus and resembling the effects of aging on the brain, as was seen in the bullied baboons. Research has also clearly shown that chronic stress in humans prematurely ages the brain. (Bear, Connors and Paradiso, Neuroscience, Exploring the Brain, second edition 2001, pg 506)

Luckily, exercise can save the day. Exercise releases a host of neurochemicals and growth factors that reverse this process. May we introduce you to one of those neurochemicals; Meet BDNF (brain-derived neurotrophic factor), a superhero in the brain’s fight against stress. Present in the hippocampus, BDNF builds and maintains the cell circuitry of the brain, protects neurons against cell death and, this is significant, creates new neurons. Not long ago we thought we were born with a certain number of brain cells and that was it. The discovery that BDNF leads to neurogenesis (the birth of new brain cells) is, well, mind blowing. And exercise is one of the few ways known to increase BDNF in the hippocampus. John Ratey, clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and author of Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain compares BDNF to ‘Miracle-Gro’ fertilizer for the brain. When researchers sprinkle BDNF on neurons in a petri dish, it causes them to sprout and grow new branches. Ratey explains: 

“At every level, from the microcellular to the psychological, exercise not only wards off the ill effects of chronic stress; it can also reverse them.  Studies show that if researchers exercise rats that have been chronically stressed, that activity makes the hippocampus grow back to its pre-shriveled state.  The mechanisms by which exercise changes how we think and feel are so much more effective than donuts, medicines and wine.  When you say you feel less stressed out after you go for a swim, or even a fast walk, you are.” (Ratey, Spark, pg 79)

Exercise not only counteracts the negative effects of current stress, it inoculates against future stress. Technically, exercise is itself a form of stress for body and brain, although mild. Just like muscles in the body, neurons in the brain are broken down and then built up again stronger than they were before. The stress of exercise helps the brain grow and become more resilient, enabling us to better handle the challenges of modern life. Michael Lehmann, PhD, at the National Institute of Mental Health illustrated this buffering effect of exercise in an experiment with mice. For three weeks, a group of mice were confined to small cages where little movement was possible. Then they were subjected to intimidation by more aggressive mice through a clear partition, and for a few minutes a day, the partition was lifted and the alpha mice had a chance to bully in person, sometimes needing to be restrained from harming the submissive mice. After two weeks, unsurprisingly, the submissive mice showed signs of depression and anxiety by hiding more and exploring less. In contrast, another group of mice lived in enriched environments for three weeks before they were introduced to the bullies. Here they could explore tubes and exercise on running wheels. Amazingly, these mice showed no signs of depression or anxiety when exposed to the aggressive mice. Exercise and mental enrichment seems to have a buffering effect on how we will respond to future stressors. (Lehmann, The Exercise Effect apa.org). 

Anxiety and depression are the ugly offspring of chronic stress. Relentless stress shifts brain chemistry making positive and realistic thoughts less accessible. (Ratey, Spark, loc 1076). Forty percent of adults will suffer from an anxiety disorder at some point in their lives. (https://www.anxiety.org/what-is-anxiety) Excessive feelings of uneasiness and apprehension, often with no discernable reason, seem unmanageable, leaving anxiety sufferers feeling out of control. Exercise effectively distracts the mind and interrupts the flow of worrying. Research shows it reduces muscle tension which reduces feelings of anxiety, and it eases the triggers of panic attacks. Symptoms of anxiety include heart palpitations, rapid breathing, and sweating--many of the same physical feelings of exercise. When a person experiences these physical sensations during exercise while they are controlling them, they connect them to a non-threatening situation conditioning the mind to feel safe (Ratey, Spark, pg 106-107). 

Mood Enhancement

Poets and musicians have it all wrong. It’s a broken brain, not the heart that makes us suffer so. "You’re a brain breaker, dream maker, love taker, don’t you mess around with me..." (extra credit for knowing and singing this tune!). It has been estimated that more than one in five adults suffers from a major depressive disorder at some point in their lives. Depression has many possible contributors including faulty mood regulation by the brain, genetic vulnerability, unhelpful patterns of cognitive appraisal, and stressful life events (especially how a person interprets these events). It is believed that several of these contributors interact to bring on depression. 

Well-being, mood, it’s all in the brain, and the hippocampus is an important player. A 1996 study by Yvette Sheline of Washington University found the hippocampus of depressed women to be 15% smaller than their nondepressed counterparts and the degree of shrinkage was directly related to the length of the depression (serendip.brynmawr.edu, also Ratey, Spark, loc 1817). Chronic depression may also cause structural damage in other areas of the brain. MRI scans of depressed patients have shown gray matter in the cortex physically shrunken. This is the area that directs complex functions such as attention, emotions, memory, and consciousness. (Ratey, Spark, loc 1806). 

“Depression is a bona fide brain shrinker that has been shown to reduce the size of the hippocampus and lead to a reduction in cognitive performance. Depressed patients often report memory problems, difficulty focusing and sustaining attention, and low motivation. Fortunately, treatment of depression has been shown to reverse hippocampal shrinkage in just six months.” (Majid Fotuhi, Boost Your Brain, pg 53).

Depression can be thought of an an erosion of connections, in the brain and in life. (Ratey, Spark, loc 1622). And if depression is the breakdown of the brain’s connectivity, that is good news for the value of exercise because it reestablishes those connections. 

Lower levels of BDNF are associated with depression. One study of thirty depressed patients showed that every one of them had lower than normal BDNF levels. Exercise has been found to boost BDNF as least as much as antidepressants. (Ratey, Spark, loc 1860, pg 131). 

The array of antidepressant drugs target three neurotransmitters: norepinephrine, dopamine, and serotonin in different combinations. When a person is diagnosed with depression, it’s a matter of trial and error to find the right drug to relieve it. There’s no blood test for depression, and no test to tell which neurotransmitter if any is at fault. Many researchers have questioned the efficacy and clinical significance of antidepressant medications, especially for mild and moderate cases (for example: https://www.madinamerica.com/2017/02/new-data-showslack-efficacy-antidepressants/). However, exercise appears to increase and balance all of the neurotransmitters targeted by antidepressants. It elevates levels of norepinephrine, waking up the brain and improving self-esteem. It boosts dopamine which affects motivation and attention. And it regulates serotonin which is important for impulse control and feelings of serenity and hopefulness. (Ratey, Spark, loc 1719). In Britain, doctors are writing prescriptions for exercise as a first line treatment for depression, and doctors in the United States are beginning to catch on. 

But what if you don’t have the full line of symptoms for a clinical diagnosis of depression but just feel down?  What if you just feel less than well or want to feel better than okay? Aerobic exercise has a positive impact on a range of symptoms and behaviors contributing to well-being, even when they are mild. If you’re a data person, we’ve got lots of this for you to chew on. A huge study of 19,288 Dutch twins and their families showed exercisers to be less anxious, less depressed, less neurotic and more socially outgoing.  A Finnish Study in 1999 showed that those who exercise at least two to three times a week experience significantly less depression, anger, stress, and ‘cynical distrust’. (Ratey, Spark, loc 1675). An Australian study found after two months of exercise participants not only reported significant decreases in emotional stress, but they smoked less, drank less alcohol and caffeine, ate healthier, lost their tempers less often, did more household chores, kept more commitments, spent less money, and improved their study habits. (Oaten M1, Cheng K., Longitudinal gains in self-regulation from regular physical exercise, Br J Health Psychol. 2006 Nov;11(Pt 4):717-33.)

There are piles of studies finding exercise to relieve symptoms of depression and improve overall mood, but here’s one in particular we’d like you to pay attention to. A landmark investigation called “SMILE” (Standard Medical Intervention versus Long-term Exercise) is one of many eye-opening studies that supports exercise as an important mood-boosting intervention. In 2000 researchers at Duke University found exercise to be at least as effective as Zoloft for relieving depression. One hundred fifty-six depressed patients were randomly put into one of three groups: 1) antidepressant medication treatment, 2) exercise, or 3) both antidepressant and exercise. The exercisers worked at 70-85% of heart rate reserve three times a week. At the end of four months all groups showed the same decrease in depressive symptoms, suggesting that exercise and antidepressant treatments were equally effective (in the short term). The really interesting finding came from evaluating relapse rates 10 months later. At follow-up, 38% of the antidepressant group had relapsed into depression, and a similar 31% of the combined antidepressant/exercise group had relapsed as well. But the relapse rate for the exercise-only group was just 9%! (October 2000 Duke University New York Times. Exercise is better than Zoloft at treating depression). Let that sink in for a moment; how would you explain these results? 

It’s fascinating to consider why the exercise-only group would have significantly lower relapse rates than those who got medication and exercised. Further research is needed to better understand this finding, but it may have to do with a person’s attributions for improvement; that is, what they thought about why they improved. For example, some participants in the combined treatment may have believed that the medication was responsible for their improvement (not their own efforts at exercising), leaving them more vulnerable to relapse in the long-term. In contrast, those in the exercise-only group could attribute their improvement to their own efforts, increasing their sense of self-efficacy, which in turn leads to other healthy behaviors and thought patterns. Whatever the underlying mechanisms are for mood-enhancement, exercise is clearly a good thing for body, mood, and mind.    

Positive psychology author Tal Ben Shahar explains the relation between mood and exercise in a different way than you’ve likely heard before. Considering our evolutionary context in which we often had to RUN to catch our lunch, or RUN to avoid being lunch, an active lifestyle is the default condition for human physical and mental health. As a result, he explains that rather than thinking about exercise being like taking an antidepressant, it may be more accurate to say that not exercising is like taking a depressant! Who would do that, right? (Well, besides millions of us modern humans).    

Whether or not you’ve skipped through all the brainy science-speak to this point, watch this video now for an engaging summary of these and other points that will increase your motivation to follow through with your exercise intentions:
 

Other Benefits of Routine Exercise

• Increased Self-Efficacy: Self-efficacy refers to our confidence in our ability to be successful in our various endeavors. One of the markers associated with stress and depression is low self-efficacy. Significant improvements in self-efficacy have been found after just one workout, especially in females. (McAuley E1, Courneya KS, Lettunich J.,Effects of acute and long-term exercise on self-efficacy responses in sedentary, middle-aged males and females, Gerontologist. 1991 Aug;31(4):534-42.) Exercise can have a powerful effect on how we feel about ourselves and the control we have over our lives. With exercise, you are in control. You gain a sense of self-confidence and mastery by utilizing your ability to exercise as a resource to manage stress, and that confidence can spark progress in other areas of your life.

• Improved Memory: Since exercise increases brain volume and plasticity, promoting cell growth and preventing cognitive decline, it could mean the difference between a healthy mind in old age or dementia. Physical fitness helps slow the progression of dementia and Alzheimer's disease. Regular aerobic exercise reduces your risk of dementia by 50 percent, and your Alzheimer’s risk by 60 percent. (John Medina, Brain Rules) Exercise is the most effective way known to improve memory now and later in life. Watch this brief video explaining the effect of exercise on memory:

• Sharper, More Creative Thinking:

Exercise improves creative thinking for a time immediately after exercise. People given tests on cognitive flexibility (our ability to shift thinking and produce creative thoughts) before and after exercise show improved creativity after just one workout. (Netz Y1, Tomer R, Axelrad S, Argov E, Inbar O.,The effect of a single aerobic training session on cognitive flexibility in late middle-aged adults, Int J Sports Med. 2007 Jan;28(1):82-7.) The 60 to 90 minutes directly after a workout will be your most clear and creative time of the day. (Ratey, Spark, loc 2358).

This video highlights research on science of exercise and the brain, as explained by Dr. John Ratey in his excellent book Spark:

• Higher Quality Sleep:  Exercise improves sleep duration and quality, and strengthens circadian rhythms increasing daytime alertness and nighttime sleepiness. (T. L. LeiseM. E. Harrington et al.,Voluntary exercise can strengthen the circadian system in aged mice, AGE, December 2013, Volume 35, Issue 6, pp 2137–2152). Exercisers are 65 percent less likely to feel overly sleepy during the day than non-exercisers. (Paul D. Loprinzia. et al, Association between objectively-measured physical activity and sleep, NHANES 2005–2006,Mental Health and Physical Activity, Volume 4, Issue 2, December 2011, Pages 65-69). Research shows higher intensity exercise may support longer periods of slow-wave sleep, the deepest and most regenerative stage of sleep. (Markus Dworak et al, Increased slow wave sleep and reduced stage 2 sleep in children depending on exercise intensity, sleep medicine, March 2008 Volume 9, Issue 3, Pages 266–272).

• More energy: The last thing a person suffering from fatigue wants to do is exercise, but studies have shown that exercise, specifically low intensity walking is one of the best ways to boost energy. One study reported that inactive people who complained of fatigue could increase energy by 20% and decrease fatigue by as much as 65% by participating in regular, low-intensity exercise. Other studies show that exercise is even more effective in reducing fatigue and increasing energy than stimulant medications. (Dr. Eva B. Cwynar, MD, The Fatigue Solution, 2012, pg 161).

• More Time: A healthy weight, physically active person can expect to live 7.2 quality years longer than their sedentary, overweight counterparts. (Steven C. Moore, et al., Leisure Time Physical Activity of Moderate to Vigorous Intensity and Mortality: A Large Pooled Cohort Analysis, 2012, PLOS Medicine). And those who exercise at a high level (30 min. of running for women, 40 min. for men, 5 days per week) are 9 years younger on a cellular level. A study at Brigham Young University found these people to have significantly longer telomeres. Telomeres are the endcaps on the end of each chromosome and each time a cell divides it loses some of the cap. Thus, the older we get, the shorter our telomeres. Once the telomere is too short, the cell can no longer replicate. Interestingly, exercise has an exponential benefit on cells. A real difference in slowing biological age was only seen in high levels of exercise. Moderate levels of activity showed only a two year advantage over those who were sedentary (http://news.byu.edu/news/research-finds-vigorous-exercise-associated-reduced-aging-cellular-level).

How Much is Enough?

So, how much exercise do I really need to improve my emotional well-being? Researchers are still working on that, but the answer so far: A little helps, more is better. Psychologist Jasper Smits said, “By and large, for most people, when they exercise 30 minutes—particularly when it’s a little bit more demanding and they get their heart rate up—they feel better. You get an immediate mood lift.” (fitness.mercola.com, exercise is the best drug for depression). Even as little as 10 minutes of exercise can immediately improve vigor and mood (Hansen, Cheryl J.; Stevens, Larry C.; Coast, J. Richard, Health Psychology, Vol 20(4), Jul 2001, 267-275). Population studies consistently show that higher levels of fitness relate directly to positive mood and lower levels of stress and anxiety. And depressed patients on higher dose exercise programs show more significant improvement than those who exercise less. (Madhukar Trivedi, MD, at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical College,Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, 2011). Regardless of your current fitness level, you can improve your mood and well-being by doing more than you are doing now.

150

The U.S. Department of Health recommends at least 150 minutes of moderately strenuous physical activity per week.

30

This equates to 30 minutes of activity per day, for at least 5 days per week.

This is the government’s minimal recommendation. Additional benefits come with more activity. Note that even when meeting these guidelines we are still burning only 38 percent of the energy our paleolithic ancestors used just to feed themselves each day. There is a mismatch between our genes and our modern lifestyle. (Ratey, Spark, pg 69). Go here for the health department’s complete guidelines: https://health.gov/paguidelines/guidelines/summary.aspx

Keys to Developing an Exercise Habit

OK, stand up, walk around for a minute, and press the “reset” button on your attention span, because everything you’ve read so far may not help you if you don’t really focus on this section. We know exercise is good for us. We’re even glad when we do it. Yet 80% of Americans fail to meet the government’s minimum recommendations for physical activity. Why is it so hard to sustain an exercise habit? Here are a few very important things to keep in mind as you work toward joining the 20 percent:

• Step 1: LOVE YOUR BODY!: If you can easily come up with a list of specific "imperfections" about your body (things that you likely wish were different about your physical appearance), congratulations!; you are a normal human being influenced by modern western culture! For fun, Jared offers his incomplete list of body image issues: "I have small beady eyes; my teeth are crooked; I have belly fat that doesn't go away despite my best efforts; my jaw is small and wimpy; I have scrawny 'chicken legs'; and my hair has gone gray prematurely." Now go ahead and think of your own physical "imperfections" and notice what immediately comes to mind. These aren't new thoughts, are they? Are they helpful?

Why do we have these unhelpful thoughts and where do they come from? The short answer is that we are biologically primed to want to look healthy and that we live in a culture that places an extremely high value on physical appearance. As a result, we often work under the assumption that once we look better we'll be more worthy of love and appreciation (from others and from ourselves), but this is just plain false. You (and your physical body) are already completely worthy of love and appreciation; it's ok if there are things about your physical appearance you would like to work on, but doing so will not make you any more deserving of appreciation (from yourself or others) than you already are. Moreover, if you start from a place of deep appreciation for your body and what it can do for you, you are more likely to take good care of it.

For just a few moments, take a look at your body. Letting go of any judgements about how you might wish it was different, consider all the things this body allows you to do. Reflect on the experiences that you regularly enjoy through each of the senses. Think of the many things you've done with this body: have you climbed a mountain? gone waterskiing? learned to play a musical instrument? given birth to a child?! This body is amazing! Consider what's going on inside: complex life-sustaining processes that we're mostly oblivious to that require no conscious effort on our part. Breathing, digestion, metabolism, circulation, hormonal and neurotransmitter activity.... We have an incomprehensible network of trillions of synapses in the brain that give us the experiences of sensation, perception, movement, language, memory, emotion, motivation, anticipation, imagination, and more! This body is your vehicle for experiencing the wonder of life! And yet when you look in the mirror the first thing that comes to mind is "My chin looks fat"?! 

Maybe you have some physical limitations that keep you from doing things you used to do or would like to do. What can your body do? Can you listen to your favorite music? taste great food? notice the scent of fresh rainfall? feel your child's cheek against your own as she gives you a hug? watch a vibrant sunset? This body is a miracle, and a gift, and when we understand this we are more likely to give it the care it needs to thrive.

Appreciating your body is so important that we've created a "mini-module" on this very topic. Consider all the mental, physical, and emotional efforts you've previously invested in trying to look a certain way. As a personal experiment, would you be willing to re-allocate just a fraction of that time and effort toward learning how to better appreciate your body as it already is, and then see if it's easier to maintain an exercise habit? Maybe you'll even end up looking great as a happy consequence. What works better: exercising so that you can (maybe, eventually) love your body? or exercising because you love your body? You'll never know until you test it out for yourself.                         

• Do it for the Right Reasons: As an extension of the point above, consider honestly whether your primary reason for working out has been to look better. Who doesn’t want less fat and more muscle? And much of the time that is the reason that initially gets us off the couch. However, there are a few long-term problems with this motivation, and now you are about to hear what you may not want to know: Exercise alone does little to change your weight. (Did you just have a flashback to when you were told there was no Santa Claus?) Here’s the skinny on exercise and weight: Weight happens about 80 percent in the kitchen and 20 percent in the gym. Human bodies are just too efficient. A two-second, 100 calorie brownie bite equals 15-20 minutes of brisk walking.

The problem with high expectations for exercise to change your weight is this: When you get out there and bust your tail all week, then step on the scale and see little or no change (because it can take months before visual improvements occur, and because of compensatory eating due to a revved up appetite), then most of us are discouraged and eventually quit. Having unrealistic expectations of how quickly exercise will transform you into a swimsuit model will only bring frustration and a speedy end to your convictions. Moreover, it immediately labels exercise as a punishment. Right out of the gate you are essentially thinking, “Look at what I have to endure now because I’m so fat”. “This is my punishment for being a pig.” (Hopefully you don’t think that exactly, but you get the idea.) If you are exercising for the primary reason that you are unhappy with how you look because you enjoyed food in excess, and exercise is the method to correct it, then exercise is the opposite of enjoying food, and therefore, an unpleasant chore. (If there’s no Santa, there’s no reason to be good all year.)

But don’t scrap your workout plans just yet. Exercise will make you leaner and stronger... eventually, with consistency and calorie control. In fact, it may be essential for long term weight loss maintenance. Ninety percent of people who have lost weight and kept it off exercise an average of an hour per day. (http://www.nwcr.ws/Research/default.htm) But keep the bulk of the remedy to weight in the kitchen, where it belongs. In contrast, when you exercise because you want to increase your well-being, you don’t have to step on a scale to see if it worked. You immediately feel better. You can compare how you felt before and after the workout and know right away that it worked! When you exercise for stress reduction, you are immediately less stressed. When you exercise for self-efficacy, you immediately feel empowered and accomplished. When you exercise for sharper mental function, you immediately think more clearly and creatively. After learning what exercise does not only for your body, but for your brain, mind, and mood, then your reasons for exercising will fall into their rightful places with looking good coming in last.

• Do What You Enjoy: You are not going to keep doing something you have to force yourself to do, and since the goal is a lifelong habit, you might as well find something you enjoy. “But that’s the problem,” you say, ”I don’t like any exercise.” Let’s explore that point. Most people like what they are good at; the things that come easily. To an unconditioned body, a grueling workout is anything but easy. Of course you don’t like to huff and puff and struggle along. Who would? You’re not good at it…yet. Working too intensely for a person’s fitness level is one of the reasons 50% of those who start an exercise program drop out within the first 6 months. They finally muster up the willpower to get out and exercise after being sedentary for a while, and jump into their definition of what a workout should be. Working too hard for one’s current fitness level is an unpleasant experience. So, the next day when it’s time to do it all over again they remember the discomfort and feelings of inadequacy. Willpower is a limited commodity. Why not start out doing something you can be a champ at? How about walking? You’ve been doing it since you were 12 months old now. I’ll bet you are pretty good at it. So, go for a walk. Be as lazy as you feel like. Start at ten minutes a day and soon you’ll want to go longer. Ease up to half an hour. Before you know it, you’ll feel like walking faster. Then one day, you might feel like jogging. You’ll jog for a few minutes and then feel like walking again. Maybe it’ll be six months before your half hour of walk/jog turns into all jog. It doesn’t matter how long it takes. You can go at whatever pace your body and mind are ready for. As you’re cultivating the habit of consistent exercise it’s not about the intensity of the work out, it’s about training your mind and nourishing the habit so the motivation becomes intrinsic (comes from inside you as opposed to an external source). When the habit is ingrained and your body is ready, you’ll naturally want to increase your intensity. But, as you are developing the habit, it’s not a workout. It’s not work. It’s play.

We evolved being active, and so, we were designed to run. But also in our genes is the tendency to take advantage of plentiful times and store energy for the lean ones; to be lazy. Knowing there are both sides in us, the key is to tap into the natural joy of movement innate in humans. It’s in there, somewhere. We don’t even have to look back to our hunter gatherer days to find when humans liked to move. Remember when gym was your favorite subject?  Remember when sitting still in time-out was a punishment? Remember recess?--The open field that just called you to run until your lungs burst. The games and competition, friends, kissing tag (where were the recess monitors in the eighties anyway?) It was a time of freedom and exploration, a time to be social, to take a break from responsibilities. That is what your exercise time can be. Your recreation time.

The good news is that any energy expenditure above that of resting level counts as exercise. This means anything besides sitting still, so surely everyone can find something enjoyable in that category. Doing something you like not only makes the experience more pleasant, it makes the exercise you are doing seem easier. In a laboratory study on relatively inactive adults (Parfitt & Gledhill 2004), participants indicated their preferred exercise among three similarly difficult aerobic workouts and then performed each of them for 20 minutes. After exercising with their preferred method, their psychological distress, reported difficulty, and fatigue were lower, and their sense of positive well-being was higher, even though the actual difficulty of the three choices were roughly the same. The exercise the individual chose was actually easier to do and gave them greater mood benefits. 

If you’ve suffered through your workouts in the past only to quit when your willpower gave out, you might benefit by experimenting with something new until you find what keeps you coming back. Look for activities that fit your personality. Competition may be the catalyst that gets you moving (basketball? racquetball?, maybe a sprint triathlon?). If you are socially driven, it might be a group class complete with social interaction and support. Don't underestimate the value of social support and accountability; if you've recruited a friend who's planning to meet you at 6:00am, you're much less likely to hit the snooze button. Others prefer time for themselves with a headset and a fitness watch to track improvements. Be open to trying something new. You may be surprised at what you find out you like. If the treadmill in the basement didn’t do it for you the last few times you committed to get in shape, it likely won’t be any different this time around. Make a change. Find what you love and you’ll forget that it’s work.

• Combine Your Motivations: At any given moment you have a mound of competing motivations jostling for top position. You have a motivation to write that email, get to work on time and earn that paycheck, eat the donut sitting on the counter, watch the next episode of Walking Dead, and, oh yeah, get fit. You can help manipulate what ends up on top by leveraging a stronger motivation in order to get a weaker motivation met. One of us (Andrea) loves her treadmill in the winter. (Full disclosure; I actually just love the Netflix shows I watch while on my treadmill in the winter. By combining the motivation to watch Netflix with the motivation to exercise, the stronger supports the weaker.) Another of us (Jared), used to rarely go to the gym, but it’s been a regular habit now for over a decade because cousin Landon (a personal trainer) would get on his case if he missed (now it serves both social and fitness purposes). Kristen got a job teaching swimming lessons combining her motivation for mula with her motivation to workout.  Matt loves to listen to podcasts, so he downloads them and listens while he walks. Andrea decided to save money and not hire the snow plow company to plow the driveway, instead shoveling it herself. The motivation to be able to get out of her driveway supported her motivation to sweat a little. Win win. Volunteer to coach your child’s soccer team. Do your own gardening. Schedule a standing time to walk with a friend each week and leverage your social motivations. Take a lunchtime exercise break for some fresh air and sun on your face. 

• Consistency (Let the Habit Loop do the Heavy Lifting): It sounds counterintuitive, but an exercise habit is actually easier to stick with if done every day compared to a few times a week.  According to a study by Rodgers and colleagues (2002), the more frequent the prescribed exercise, the better the adherence. Think of it this way: Every night you brush your teeth before you go to bed.  You don’t have a M-W-F teeth cleaning schedule, so you don’t have to think, “Is it Monday, brush day?” You just walk into the bathroom before bed each night and get it done. It feels wrong if you don’t. With exercise, if you consistently wake up, roll out of bed, put on your workout clothes and go walking, it significantly reduces the cognitive effort of remembering what day it is, deciding when you’ll be able to fit it in, and then convincing yourself to do it. With exercise, the less thinking involved the better. To the brain, decisions and willpower are dipped from the same bucket, and there’s only so much of it. Help yourself out even more by scheduling your workout at the same time every day. The subconscious takes over when cues like time of day, place and circumstances are the same. The brain eventually gives up resisting and the act becomes automatic.  Sure, take a day or two off here or there, but when exercise is in the same category as eating, sleeping, and brushing your teeth, you’ll know you have arrived.

In his book The Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg describes the habit loop as cue, routine, reward. When applied to exercise, the cue is what reminds the brain that it’s time to exercise; seeing your workout shoes by the door, rolling out of bed each morning, or coming home from work each day. The routine is your actual workout. Then there is the reward, and here’s why exercise can be a difficult habit to create. When we think of the rewards of exercise, most often we think of those that materialize in the long term: gradual better health, preventing disease down the road, looking and feeling better and more confident. However, in order for a habit to be created and become self propelled, there must be an immediate reward that reinforces the routine. The immediate rewards of exercise are more subtle and you might miss them if you aren’t looking. Try paying attention during and after your workout to what is happening to your mood, your stress levels, how you feel about yourself and the world around you. A conscious scan of your mind and body will discover those real but subtle feelings of relaxation and accomplishment. But in order for those feelings to be there we need to go back to the process, the actual workout, and make sure it is at a level so that the physical sensations of breathing harder feel cleansing instead of scorching to your lungs, and the warmth in your muscles feel powerful instead of defeating. You have to work in that sweet spot appropriate to your fitness level that creates a sense of success and accomplishment. You can also try affixing your own immediate rewards to exercise, like treating yourself to your favorite healthy smoothy afterward. It is essential that there is a clear recognition of the reward because a habit is only formed when the brain starts expecting the reward--craving the relaxation and sense of accomplishment. (Charles Duhigg, The Power of Habit, 2012, pg 51) Eventually, with consistency, the habit loop will form, and you’ll be exercising on autopilot instead of willpower. Read more about how to make habits work for you in this module.

Testimonial

Interview with Kara: Read here about how things have changed for Kara (33 year-old mom of three) since she started to exercise regularly.

Personal Experiment

• Consider: On one column of a page list the reasons why you want to develop a habit of regular exercise. What will you gain?  How will you improve?  What kind of person will you be? Are there hereditary health concerns that could be averted in you? Be specific. In the other column list the reasons that are currently keeping you from exercise.  Instead of using labels like “I’m lazy,” think of what goes into your decision making process, “I’d rather relax and unwind on the couch after work.” Instead of, “I don’t have time”, write “I’d rather be home after work with my family, not at a gym.” Compare the two columns.  Are there things you are willing to give up in the reason column in order to gain the benefits?  Are there ways you can work around some of those reasons? Evaluate and challenge them. “Could I take a jog with my son after work to exercise and spend time with my family?” What would a person with an established habit of exercise say to your reasons? Imagine yourself as a person who now has an established habit of exercise.  What would future you say to your reasons column?

• Make a plan: Make a specific and realistic exercise goal for this week. (e.g., I will walk 30 min. for 4 days, and do 30 min. yoga 1 day) How will you implement your exercise goals? 

Create a schedule for yourself for the week. Put in your calendar what time and what type of workout you’ll do.  If someone asks you to do something else in that time, tell them you have an appointment. You won’t always need to be so strict with your exercise schedule, but for now until it’s a habit, practice how it feels to put your health as a top priority. 

Now, considering what you know of yourself, your circumstances, and past attempts, think of possible scenarios that could keep you from accomplishing your goal and make an “if-then” plan to work around them. (It could rain when I planned to walk outside. If that happens, instead of skipping the workout, I’ll walk up and down the stairs inside).

• Record: Keep an exercise journal and record your feelings about your mood before you work out. Then record your feelings about how you feel after you finish working out. Try to focus how your mind is feeling, not what your body experienced during exercise. 

• Predict: On those days when you simply don’t feel like exercising, try an experiment: Before your workout, predict on a scale of 1-10 how much you think you will enjoy working out today. (Expand the scale to negative numbers if you like.) Then, after your workout, rate your level of actual enjoyment.  You will likely notice that you enjoyed it much more than you thought you would (or that it was much less awful than you predicted), and remember that for the next time you feel like skipping your workout.

• Try a "mindful workout":  You can do this with any form of exercise, but an outdoor brisk walk or jog unplugged from headphones works best. Take a few deep breaths before you begin and mentally scan your body and mind. Are you sore anywhere? What is your energy level, your general mood? This will help you set an appropriate intention for your workout and avoid injury. As you begin your walk or jog, pay attention to what’s happening in your body and mind. Give attention to your breath. Notice its strength increasing as you warm up. Notice the rhythm of your stride, the strength of your muscles contracting and elongating, the power of your heart. Be aware of your environment as it goes by. Let yourself be in the moment. Feel the wind on your skin, the sights and sounds of your surroundings. Stay aware of your body and make any necessary corrections to nurture it. Is your torso and back tall (not hunched), are your shoulders and hands relaxed, are you working at an appropriate level for your body?  Notice your thoughts as they come, without judgment. If they wander to the past or future gently bring them back to the present moment by focusing again on your breath, heart, and body. Notice the feeling in your mind. You may feel powerful, positive, confident, grateful. At the end of your walk or jog, take time to gently stretch with the same mindful attention, and thank your body for the experience.

Resources

The Complete Workout

A well rounded fitness program will emphasize variety and contain the four pillars of fitness: Cardio, Strength, Flexibility and Balance:

Cardio: Also known as aerobic exercise, cardiovascular exercise uses large muscle groups over a sustained period of time to raise your heart rate to an ideal range of 55 to 85 percent of your maximum heart rate. (Maximum heart rate is roughly 220 minus your age). If you don’t have a fitness device tracking it for you, an easy way to measure your exercise intensity is through the ‘talk test’. If you can talk, but not sing, you are likely in the moderate-intensity zone. If you are ready for a challenge, you may consider adding high intensity interval training to your workout. There is conflicting evidence on how HIIT affects mood, but it clearly releases important growth factors that build up the brain. And as we’ve learned, what’s good for the brain is good for well-being. HIIT alternates short bouts of intense effort with longer recovery periods. HIIT trains the fast twitch muscle fibers which can raise Human Growth Hormone levels by up to 700 percent. (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18710818) You can include high intervals in just about any workout. Choose an activity that you can get completely breathless after 30 seconds of full-out effort like running, stairs, or stationary biking. Start out by including just one high interval in your workout 2 times a week.  Eventually you’ll be able to perform up to eight sets, 30 seconds “on” and 90 seconds “off”. Here’s an example of a HIIT workout: Start with a warm up for 5 minutes, then sprint at an all-out pace for 30 seconds, then slow to a jog or walk for the next minute or two. Repeat this process up to 8 times and then cool down. Again, this is for the established exerciser, so start wherever you are.

Strength: Most experts recommend strength training two times a week. Resistance training, whether it be with a dumbbell or your own body weight, may be the best exercise for lifelong function. (http://time.com/4803697/bodybuilding-strength-training/) Mark Peterson, assistant professor of physical medicine at the University of Michigan says that maintaining strength “seems to be one of the best predictors of survival. When we add strength...almost every health outcome improves.” In addition to the physical health benefits, research has linked strength training to improved cognitive function, less anxiety and greater well-being. (peig-Chiello et al., The effects of resistance training on well-being and memory in elderly volunteers, 1998, British Geriatrics Society) Cardio is generally viewed as king for its’ beneficial effects on mood, however several studies have found weight lifting to be as effective as aerobics for relieving symptoms of depression. (Doyne EJ, Ossip-Klein DJ, Bowman ED, Osborn KM, McDougall-Wilson IB, Neimeyer IB. Running Versus Weight Lifting in the Treatment of Depression. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology.)

Flexibility and Balance: Balance is an invisible strength that improves coordination and helps prevent injuries. Balance training includes strengthening the muscles that keep you upright like your legs and core. If you don’t think balance is important, talk to the more than two million older Americans that go to the emergency room every year because of fall related injuries. And the solution for losing balance abilities as we grow older is starting balance training while we are younger. 

Yoga, tai chi, Pilates, dance. These well-loved forms of exercise that incorporate flexibility and balance (as well as strength and sometimes cardio) focus on the whole person leaving practitioners limber, agile and relaxed. And yet, they are often the last thought in an exercise routine. Anyone who has experienced flexibility and balance fitness knows it’s the difference between walking around feeling like a frankenstein and floating through the day like a ninja cat. Not only does it simply feel good, different types of exercise may have different beneficial effects on the brain. Running rats were compared to rats that performed complex motor skills that included balance such as walking across balance beams, rope ladders, and unstable objects.  After two weeks the balancing rats increased BDNF in their cerebellums by 35 percent, whereas the running rats had none in that area (Greenough) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15518646. It seems that cardio produces the new brain cells in the hippocampus, but exercise that involves complex motor skills will use those new neurons for learning in other parts of the brain. There is also some evidence that exercise focusing on flexibility and balance improves mood. A study out of UCLA found that mildly depressed young adults who performed two, 1-hour Iyengar yoga classes each week for five weeks were significantly less negative, depressed, anxious and fatigued than those who didn’t.

Variety: Switch up your workout so you are continually challenging your body. Variety keeps your body and brain on their toes and creates the necessity for adaptation. The body has the ability to quickly adapt to a routine and finds ways to escape into a comfort zone. As a result, muscles stop developing and the brain stops creating new pathways. By varying your workout routines, you surprise the body and brain and ensure that muscles and neurons continue to be engaged. Plus, who wants to do the same thing day in and day out? Changing up your exercise routine keeps it fresh. Cardio, strength, flexibility and balance appear to benefit brain, body and mind in different ways. Why not approach your health with every weapon at your disposal?

Find a Workout

Follow the “Find your plan” link below at bodybuilding.com and fill out your information. They will direct you to one of many workout plans that could work for you:

https://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/find-a-plan.html

Explore Fitness Apps

Runkeeper: https://runkeeper.com/running-app

Sworkit: https://sworkit.com/

FitnessBuilder: https://www.pumpone.com/fitnessbuilder

Videos

Books

Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain by John Ratey

No Sweat: How the Simple Science of Motivation Can Bring You a Lifetime of Fitness by Michelle Segar

Exercise for Mood and Anxiety: Proven Strategies for Overcoming Depression and Enhancing Well-Being by Michael Otto & Jasper Smits

Brain Rules (Updated and Expanded): 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School by John Medina

Articles

The Exercise effect—an article with supporting evidence on exercise and mood enhancement, and a section on why we don’t do it. (2011):  http://www.apa.org/monitor/2011/12/exercise.aspx

Tips on how to tailor your exercise to boost your mood: https://blog.itriagehealth.com/10-ways-boost-mood-work/

10 ways to make exercise a habit: http://www.webmd.com/women/features/exercise-habits#3

Feedback

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