5 Ways To Make Exercise Suck Less
Do you find exercise boring, difficult, or a punishment? You’re not alone!
The truth is that exercise is not always fun or easy to motivate yourself to work out. And that’s totally ok! You don’t actually have to love exercise – it doesn’t have to be your passion.
However, there’s no way around the fact that exercise is an absolute essential for our mental and physical health. In some form or another, we all need to be moving our bodies regularly.
The good news is, even if you’re a chronic exercise-phobe, there are a few easy ways you make working out bearable and even enjoyable!
1. Try something new every week – Rather than trying to push through something you hate, the key is to try all the things until you find something you actually like.
2. Pump some music – Not only are the pumping tunes a welcome distraction from that burning but research has proven that music actually makes exercise feel easier. The key? Matching the tempo of your music to your exercise.
3. Change your mindset – Do you think of exercise as something you have to do in order to look a certain way, or to punish yourself for eating certain things? Firstly, I would challenge you to think about the benefits of exercise beyond the superficial.Secondly, I would encourage you to stop thinking about exercise as something you ‘have’ to do, and instead, think of it as something you ‘get’ to do.
4. Get your friends involved – Not only can working out be way less intimidating and a million times more fun when you’ve got your pals there, but you’ll also be way less likely to bail on your sessions.
5. Try exercise snacking – This is the idea of breaking up your exercise into smaller bursts throughout the day. So, instead of doing a one-hour gym session, you might do 30 squats in the morning while you’re brushing your teeth, walk to the bus stop, take the stairs at work, do some stretching on your lunch break and take your dog for a walk in the afternoon. Before you know it, you’ve done an hour of exercise — virtually without even trying!
