Does this sound familiar to you: tomorrow I will start running/going to the gym/trying out a dance class but not today because I am tired, not in the mood, too busy…It feels normal to talk about being so unmotivated to exercise but knowing that we need to do it to feel better. So how can we get motivated to exercise?
There is an interesting new study which says that mindfulness may be the key to motivation.
The researchers found that the more mindful we are, the more likely we are to be motivated and put our good intentions about physical activity into action.
In the study (link) the researchers looked at 244 students in France and asked them about their levels of mindfulness in daily life. They also asked them about their motivation to exercise and how physically active they are generally.
Focussing on people who are self-motivated (instead of feeling the pressure to exercise by peers, family or external factors )they found out that even self-motivated but less mindful people are more likely to skip sessions and not exercise. Intrinsically, self-motivated, mindful students though showed higher motivations and were exercising significantly more than their peers.
The more mindful the participants were, the stronger was the link between motivation and physical activity. Mindfulness seemed to be activate participants’ intentions, and helping translate them into action.
So how does this work? Mindfulness increases our attention and awareness, which might take us off of autopilot. Mindfulness also involves acceptance, which might protect us against feelings of failure related to exercise. Why should I start now? It’s too late anyway…I can’t lose that weight anyway…
Now, all we have to do is motivate ourselves to be mindful.
And I can help you with that. If you would like to learn about mindfulness, motivation and changing habits give me a call today!
Nina Dewar, Hypnotherapy Melbourne phone 0423090885
If you would like to read more about how hypnotherapy can help you beat procrastination - the act of putting things off- my colleague Georgina Mitchell has written a great blog post about this topic on here website here: http://www.hypfocus.com.au/blog/8-tips-for-beating-procrastination
