How have your exercise habits changed during lockdown?
And do you know that exercise makes you happier?
A thornier question, perhaps: If you do know that exercise makes you happier – it is well documented – what are you doing about it?
Perhaps you are one of the nearly one million people who downloaded the Couch to 5K app during the spring of 2020.
I was…and completed it, which I was very chuffed about.
I had run before, but not in any organized or structured kind of way. Exercise options for the nation were curtailed overnight, as the country shut up shop. I feel heart sore for those folk who run a gym for a living, and the catastrophic impact this has had on them.
But like many others, I craved that one opportunity to get outdoors each day at the height of lockdown. Running gave me a physical outlet, something away from a screen, and the app gave me a structured exercise programme that boosted my motivation and was entirely done for me. No extra brain power on my part, I just had to do the running bit.
A year on, and I am still running.
Maybe you are in the camp of the many who have embraced exercise with both hands as a way to get through lockdown. A report by Sport England from last May shows increases in cycling, walking and running during lockdown as people got outside locally in the face of limited other options. Perhaps you have fitted out part of your living room with home exercise equipment, or taking advantage of the multitudinous YouTube exercise videos. Everything and anything is available, from HIIT to yoga, and much of it is free. If you look up popular exercises at home on a search engine, you will get 106 MILLION hits….
I did try one session of Disco Yoga, in my living room, but it was not for me….in a live setting it would probably be great fun, but over Zoom, it was just a tad cringey.
Or it may be that the amount of exercise you have done has decreased. This may be due to access, or health reasons, or anxiety, or mental overload, or being too busy. For some, the detrimental impact of lockdown on exercise has been studied, as you can read here.
Sociologists will no doubt be looking into all the data for years to come.
But stepping back from lockdown and looking at the bigger picture, one fact is clear.
Exercise makes you happier.
As we meander our way through the Action for Happiness keys to happier living, the third tool in our arsenal of happiness is Exercise. You can read more here about Giving, and here about Relating, the first two keys.
For me, having spent more than 2 decades working as a physiotherapist (physical therapist), this is a no brainer.
Of course, there are bucket-loads of information, advice, data on why exercising is good for you, how it can lighten your mood, improve self-esteem, promote better sleep, even lift depression. Were I to suggest a wee shot of morphine to get you through the day, I would be in a morsel or so of trouble. But endorphins, the feel-good chemicals that go to work in your brain during exercise, induce similar feelings to morphine – and have no negative side effects, cost nothing and have multiple benefits. I am more than happy to recommend a bit of that!
Exercise has to be fun otherwise we won’t stick at it.
I must have said that thousands of times to folk going through their rehab after ill-health or injury. Of course, this is not always the case. We know that not all exercise, or parts of exercise is fun and that is where perseverance, discipline and will power come in. But generally, if we are enjoying what we are doing, we are more likely to stick with it.
We all know what we should do, but actually doing it is a different story.
We don’t suffer from a lack of information, but motivation.
So – a good key to motivation is to know yourself.
What do you love to do?
How do you love to do it – on your own, with music, with a friend, in a group?
Outside or inside?
What sports really rock your boat or what have you always had a secret yearning to try?
Exercise with a friend or in a group and you get to tick off two happiness keys at once, as your relationships will be strengthened too – bonus!
Although I am no longer working as a physio, I can’t switch it off – that awareness of what is happening in your body, the connection between body, mind and soul. The importance of good posture. Balance in all dimensions – physical, emotional, mental. The essential role of exercise in creating time to cherish and care for ourselves.
So as lockdown eases and we consider what we want our lives to look like on the other side, how can you incorporate exercise into your life?
Exercise makes you happier – how can you apply that this week?