Years ago, I was gifted a treadmill.
Within days of receiving this treadmill, I had converted it into a walking desk. I was super excited by the possibility of walking and working simultaneously (one form of multitasking I’m totally fine with).
I had visions of myself walking and working with supercharged productivity. I thought, “Nothing is going to stop me!”.
But despite my best intentions, I struggled to use this treadmill desk. I couldn’t make walking and working part of my daily routine.
I’m embarrassed to admit that this treadmill just sat there collecting dust for years.
Occasionally, I would hop on the treadmill to practice my presentations (10 minutes here and there), but this was not a solid part of my daily routine like I had hoped it would be.
It wasn’t a lack of information. I was fully aware of the benefits of movement for learning.
I had read dozens of books and research papers that provided solid evidence for the benefits of incorporating movement into the day.
For example, the Stanford university research study called Give your ideas some legs showed that people who walked generated more creative ideas than those who sat.
I had also experienced firsthand the powerful benefits of movement: it made me feel better, stronger, and mentally sharper.
Something else was getting in the way.
So, I asked myself what Professor BJ Fogg would call the Discovery Question:
What is making this behaviour (i.e., walking and working at my treadmill desk) hard to do?
In his book Tiny Habits, Behavior Design expert Professor BJ Fogg argues if you’re struggling to engage in a particular behaviour, it will be due to one of five factors: 1) Time, 2) Money, 3) Physical effort, 4) Mental effort, and 5) Routine.
He calls these five factors the Ability Chain.
To pinpoint where you are stuck with adopting a new behaviour, Professor Fogg recommends asking the following questions:
• Do you have enough time to do the behaviour?
• Do you have enough money to do the behaviour?
• Are you physically capable of doing the behaviour?
• Does the behaviour require a lot of creative or mental energy?
• Does the behaviour fit into your current routine, or does it require you to make some adjustments?
Professor Fogg states:
“Your ability chain is only as strong as its weakest Ability Factor link.”
It was the physical effort link.
My problem was that I was walking way too fast on my treadmill, which caused my legs to fatigue quickly.
I also felt uncomfortable having to look down at my small laptop screen.
After asking the discovery question, it became clear why this habit had not stuck: I felt awkward and clumsy using my treadmill desk.
But it also became apparent that I could strengthen this weak link by making simple adjustments.
I then asked myself this question:
What could make using my treadmill desk easier to do?
I brainstormed ways to improve my treadmill desk (How could I make it easier to walk and work simultaneously?). With a bit of experimentation and a playful mindset, I was amazed that after years of this treadmill collecting dust, I was finally using it regularly.
I experienced what author Jenny Blake would call a nonlinear breakthrough (NBL).
In her book Free Time, Blake describes a non-linear breakthrough as “an unexpected sharp turn of clarity or success, rather than a linear, long, or otherwise time-consuming analysis or slog”.
This habit of using my treadmill desk was wired in quickly, easily, and joyfully.
If you’re interested in using a treadmill desk and feeling less exhausted at the end of the day, I recommend trying the following things.
Like any new habit, start small. If you’re used to sitting all day, this transition will take some time. Most people would struggle to go from sitting to walking all day. My advice is to ease into it.
Start by doing mini treadmill work sessions (15-30 minutes or whatever you can manage) and gradually build your way up to longer sessions (1 hour).
In the first couple of weeks of developing this habit, I used my treadmill desk in the morning for 2 to 3 hours and then gave myself permission to use my sit-stand desk in the afternoon.
As I became more confident walking and working, I replaced more sit-stand sessions with treadmill desk sessions. The treadmill desk is now my main workstation and the sit-stand desk is rarely used.
Comfort is king. Anyone who works in a job where they are on their feet all day will tell you that comfortable shoes are an absolute must. Don’t skimp on good shoes.
I went to a sports store and purchased a pair of running shoes that provided excellent support and made my feet feel good all day. I live in these shoes now, and they make walking and working easier and more enjoyable.
I’m a fast walker. But it’s difficult (and tiring) to walk and work at a fast pace. You can’t sustain that pace all day. It’s also hard to type and focus on your work when power walking.
I read in online forums that professional treadmill desks (not DIY ones like mine) are programmed to go at a slow pace. This is a deliberate design decision. The slow pace is not only for your safety but also so you can sustain the habit of walking and working for a long time.
I’ve had to learn to slow down (not just at my treadmill desk but in all areas of my life). Once I recalibrated to walking at a much slower pace, I could sustain this habit of working in this new way.
Some days, you’re going to have more energy than others. If you’ve been walking for 30 minutes and feel like your legs need a break, give yourself permission to take a break.
Using a treadmill desk shouldn’t feel like a chore. It should be viewed as an activity that makes you feel more alert and energised. Using a treadmill desk (even a budget homemade one) is a privilege!
You need to get the ergonomics right to sustain the habit of using a treadmill desk. In other words, you need to be comfortable at your treadmill desk.
In hindsight, it’s obvious why I wasn’t using my treadmill desk for years: my setup wasn’t the best. I was looking at a tiny laptop screen with my neck craned and moving at a power walker’s pace.
I wasn’t comfortable, which meant I didn’t feel good.
And if you don’t feel good doing something, it’s much harder to sustain a particular behaviour. You may also end up with bigger problems down the track (e.g., bad posture and lower back problems).
A couple of years ago, I attempted to improve the ergonomics of my treadmill desk by placing a sit-stand desk on top of my existing desk. I also propped up a slightly bigger monitor on some books.
This setup turned out to be disappointing. My monitor would shake as I walked on the treadmill. The sit-stand desk also restricted my walking range on the treadmill belt. Again, this setup was far from ideal and the habit of using it didn’t stick.
A few months ago, while researching ways to improve my treadmill desk, I came across forum posts where people shared that they had mounted a monitor to their wall and used it with their treadmill desk. Bingo! Immediately, I knew this was the solution for me.
I jumped on Gumtree and found a secondhand large monitor and monitor bracket. This created more space on my desk for other items (paper, pen, and my stream deck).
Finally, I could say goodbye to terrible posture and squinting at tiny icons on a small laptop screen.
My treadmill desk also doubles as my high-intensity exercise station. Each morning, before I launch into my workday, I warm up my brain by doing a 20-30 minute walk + run to clear my mind and improve my mood.
When I first started doing these morning runs, I noticed whenever I reached high speeds, objects in the cupboard next to the treadmill would shake and sometimes fall off onto the treadmill belt, creating potential trip hazards.
To solve this problem, I got a roll of heavy-duty Bear tape and taped all the boxes to the shelves beside me. It may not look pretty, but it keeps all my items securely in place.
I noticed that as I ran on the treadmill, creative ideas would come to me out of nowhere. I needed a way to capture these ideas.
So, I turned my treadmill desk into a whiteboard. This cost $5. Here’s what I did . . .
I found a roll of whiteboard wallpaper at Officeworks (a big stationery shop in Australia) and covered my desk (an old plank of wood) with it.
I also attached a plastic container to the treadmill that I found at the tip shop for $1. This container holds whiteboard markers, sticky notes, and pens.
Whenever an idea strikes, I get a whiteboard marker and write it on my desk. At the end of my run, I transfer any good ideas into my notebook.
Some people work and learn best when they move their bodies. I’m one of those people. If you’re like me and need to move, it is worth spending time getting your work set up right. The important thing is that you approach this with an open mind.
Some things will work, and some won’t. But keep tinkering and tweaking until you find a working setup, rhythm, and pace that feels good. You’ll be amazed by how much more energised and alert you feel when incorporating more movement into your day.
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Just before I was about to start delivering a presentation, he said to his students:
“You need to sit still during this talk. Don’t fidget!”
It was one of those moments where I thought, “Do I say something about that? Or do I stay quiet?”
Not wanting to undermine this teacher, I held my tongue. Had I been more courageous in that moment, I would have said this to the students:
“Listen up, I’m okay with you fidgeting. If you need to get up and move at any point during this presentation, go for it.”
Look, I know what it’s like to be a fidgety student. When I’m forced to sit for long periods, I start to fidget too.
To keep fidgeting at bay, I’ve developed a range of simple strategies that I incorporate into my day.
My body needs to move every 20 to 30 minutes. If I can get up and move regularly, I feel calm and steady. My body and mind feel good.
But if I suppress my need to move, I become sad and sluggish.
Without consciously realising it, I’ve designed my life to avoid sitting. My environment nudges me to move.
These days, I hardly ever use a car, which I’m relieved about for several reasons. Yes, there’s the astronomical price of petrol due to Trump’s illegal war and the environmental impacts of driving. But most of all, I really dislike driving. It turns out, I’m not the only person who feels this way.
Research by Nobel Prize winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman found that commuting to and from work in a car is one of the least enjoyable daily activities.
Instead of driving, I ride my bike and walk wherever possible. I also work from home and use a treadmill desk for several hours each day.
Building regular movement into my day and decreasing my sitting time has made a world of difference.
It’s a rare day when I feel a bit off. If I do feel a bit flat, it usually comes down to one of two things: a lack of movement or a poor night’s sleep.
If you’ve been feeling a bit sluggish, it may be that your chair is getting you down and keeping you down. According to Dr James Levine, you could benefit from a chair release strategy to regain your personal power.
Dr Levine encourages us to release ourselves from our chairs. He says when you escape the chair, you free yourself from “a sedentary psychological imprisonment that forbids self-propulsion, self-expression and self-fulfilment”.
In his book Get Up! Why Your Chair is Killing You and What You Can Do About It, Dr Levine argues that we didn’t evolve to sit for long periods. He states:
“The goal of sitting is to give our bodies a break from standing, which is the way the human anatomy and physiology is designed. Human design is to be upright for most of the day: walking to work, walking and nurturing our young, walking while inventing, walking while gathering our food, running on the hunt. Sitting, we know from studies in rural populations, is supposed to be undertaken in short batches to break up the motion of a dynamic day.”
In short, our bodies are designed to move.
It may come as a surprise to learn that for centuries, chairs were luxury items that signalled status and power. Only the elite owned chairs.
Fast forward to today: there is no shortage of chairs. Chairs are everywhere and for everyone. They dominate our landscape and our lives.
It seems completely normal to sit all day. Sitting doesn’t have the same stigma attached to it as smoking does.
Dr Levine refers to chairs as “agents of death” because of the harm they can inflict on our minds and bodies. I have to admit, at first, I found the characterisation of chairs as “agents of death” a little over the top. But as I learnt more about the science of prolonged sitting, I understood why Dr Levine took such a strong position.
According to multiple studies, prolonged sitting shortens our lifespan. This study found that for every hour we spend sitting, life expectancy decreases by 22 minutes.
All those hours of sitting add up. I crunched the numbers and discovered that 8 hours of sitting each day for a year reduces a person’s lifespan by 44 days. Over 10 years, you’ve shortened your lifespan by 446 days. Let me put this in context . . .
Over 100 years, instead of living to 100, you’d live to approximately 90.
But it’s not just about lifespan. It’s about healthspan (i.e. the number of years spent in good health) and your overall wellbeing. Regular physical movement adds years to your life and life to your years.
Sitting for long periods is clearly harmful, so why is it that so many ‘fidgety’ students who feel the need to move are medicated and made to feel like they are defective?
When I was a high school and university student, I found myself thinking, “Why can’t I sit still like everyone else? Why do I feel the urge to jump out of my chair and do some karate kicks and star jumps?”
But it turns out, we’re not defective. The problem is the way our modern environment is designed. The modern environment is completely out of whack and out of sync with what our bodies need.
Dr Levine’s research found fidgeters are super sensitive to ‘Move-it’ signals.
What’s a ‘Move-it’ signal?
It’s a signal we receive from a tiny area in our brain called the paraventricular nucleus of the hypothamalus. This signal tells us to move.
Dr Levine explains that our body sends us these ‘Move-it’ signals when we’ve been sitting for too long. Some people ignore these signals, while others (i.e. fidgety people) are super sensitive to them.
When we receive one of these signals, fidgety types take action. They move their bodies in whatever way they can. It could be a leg tapping under the desk or spontaneously getting up to go for a walk.
The problem is that our society is designed to suppress this pulse to move. Our challenge is to find ways to move in environments designed for sitting.
I know it’s not easy to move in most workplaces, classroom settings, and home offices, but it’s not impossible. I’m living proof that it can be done.
Below I list a number of strategies I use to avoid prolonged sitting.
Just to be clear, I still use chairs (I use them when my legs need a break, when I mind map, eat dinner, etc). But movement is the main meal and sitting is more of a condiment!
I always start my day with some form of physical activity. Before I touch my work or study, I do at least 20 minutes of physical exercise (e.g., running on a treadmill and riding a bike). Creating a habit of morning movement is key.
Once the habit is established, you’re starting your day with power and giving your brain the boost it needs to learn new ideas.
When I’m writing or performing admin tasks, I use a treadmill desk. It’s been an absolute game-changer.
You don’t have to fork out thousands of dollars for a treadmill desk. I made my own using a treadmill my friend no longer wanted and a plank of recycled wood.
Technically, using a treadmill desk is a form of multitasking (I’m walking and working at the same time), but I’m walking at a slow, steady pace, which doesn’t require a lot of cognitive resources. This means my mind is freed up to focus on other tasks.
In the corner of my office, you’ll find a rack of dumbbells, an exercise bike, a yoga mat, and various other pieces of gym equipment. Most of this equipment I purchased secondhand for an absolute bargain.
Setting yourself up with some simple gym equipment at home means there are fewer barriers to movement and lots of cues to move. It’s also a huge time saver. When I started training at home, I went from spending 30 minutes a day driving to and from the gym down to zero.
Standing is better than sitting. If you’re up on your feet, you’re more likely to move. This is why I recommend using a sit-stand desk if you’re not quite ready to try a treadmill desk or walking pad.
I make it a personal challenge to look for opportunities to move wherever possible.
For instance, when I catch the train into the city, I always take the stairs instead of the escalator (it’s fun to see if I can beat the people going up the escalator). If I’m watching a webinar or video, I’ll walk on my treadmill while listening and learning. I find that when other participants look like they are dozing off or checking their emails, I’m still sharp and focused.
When you’ve completed your work and have a few minutes to spare, get up and go for a walk before you start the next task. This is a great way to replenish your mental energy.
When it’s morning tea or lunch time, get up and walk, kick a football, shoot hoops, etc. Even five minutes of walking around the block or schoolyard will work wonders for your mind and body.
You could also suggest walking meetings where you walk and talk. A research study called Give your ideas some legs from Stanford University found that people have significantly more creative ideas when they walk compared to when they sit.
I even find that something as simple as moving my hands by drawing pictures to capture ideas during a lecture helps to release some energy and keep my mind focused on the task at hand.
Immediately after I sit down at my desk, I set a timer for 20 minutes. As soon as that timer goes off, I’m up and moving. I usually hop on my treadmill or my stationary bike for a five minute exercise snack.
Many of us have learnt to ignore our innate pulse to move. Start paying attention to your ‘Move-it’ signals and acting on them whenever you can.
For me, when a ‘Move-it’ signal strikes, I first sense it in my legs. That’s my cue to get up and move. If I can’t get up and walk, I’ll engage in micro-movements, such as tapping my foot or changing my seat position.
The more you move, the more you want to move. These days, instead of sitting and bingeing a Netflix series, I find I want to engage in more physical activities, such as going for bike rides and bush walks with friends.
Travelling from one place to another can feel like a drag, so naturally, we want to speed it up by taking the car. But it doesn’t have to be this way. I view riding my bike to the shops or walking to the post office as great opportunities to take a mental break and get some movement in.
In his book Time Surfing, Zen Monk Paul Loomans states:
“…travelling can be far more than purely functional. Take advantage of the fact that you’re out and about for a while. You’re in the fresh air and can feel the sun, rain or wind on your skin. You meet people, you see the cherry blossoms, you hear a blackbird singing – the world is full of delights to draw your attention. And best of all…you’re with yourself!”
Fidgeting with a paper clip, some silly putty, or anything that feels good in your hand can help us feel more alert and a bit more playful. In the book The Extended Mind, Annie Murphy Paul explains that this sense of playfulness induces a positive mood, which helps us to learn more effectively, boosts our creativity, and makes us more flexible in our thinking.
Moving our bodies is an essential ingredient for living a happy and healthy life. It also gives us the edge when it comes to learning and generating creative ideas.
So, get yourself a spunky bike, some exercise equipment for your study or office space, and invest in some comfy walking shoes. Trust me, this will be money well spent.
By adding more movement to your day, you’ll experience energy, happiness, and a sense of freedom like never before.
The other day, I was getting my haircut when my hairdresser told me something her 15-year-old son had said. His words took her completely by surprise. He said:
“Mum, I need to try harder this year.”
I hear those words a lot. Try harder.
I hear them from students who want to do better at school and from teachers who are trying to motivate students (“You need to try harder”).
But what does it actually mean to “try harder”?
The problem is that this advice is too vague and abstract.
If you don’t have a clear picture of what ‘trying harder’ looks like, you’re in dangerous territory because you’re attempting to motivate yourself towards an abstraction.
In the book Tiny Habits, Professor BJ Fogg explains the problems associated with motivating yourself to achieve a vague goal. He writes:
“You’ve probably seen a well-meaning public-health poster in the doctor’s office that shows lots of colourful vegetables with the headline: EAT THE RAINBOW!
At first glance, you think: Yes, I need to eat better food. But then you’re not sure what practical steps to take. How much green and how much red? That means salad and apples, right? It can’t mean mint ice-cream and red licorice, can it? You are motivated to “eat the rainbow,” but maybe you don’t know how. You feel frustrated and end up being a little hard on yourself.”
I didn’t want my hairdresser’s son to feel frustrated and annoyed with himself. He clearly had good intentions.
I asked my hairdresser, “What does trying harder look like for your son? If he’s trying harder, what is he doing?”
She said she wasn’t sure. So, I kept asking questions.
“Does it look like him sitting down and testing himself with flashcards before a test? Taking notes in class? Listening to the teacher instead of chatting with his mates?”
The answer was clear. She said, “Listening to the teacher! He needs to start listening to his teachers.”
I also mentioned that it would help if he learnt his teachers’ names (you’d be surprised how many teachers tell me their students don’t know their names).
Remembering a teacher’s name, staying focused on what they have to say, resisting distractions, taking notes and reading your textbook may sound easy, but these are skills that require continuous practice.
If you’re not used to doing them, they can feel hard.
Even with years of practice under my belt, understanding new ideas still feels hard. These days, reading feels like weightlifting for my mind!
After getting my haircut, for the next 24 hours, I kept thinking about those words “try harder”.
Something was bugging me about it because I felt it wasn’t helpful to tell yourself to “try harder”. . . and then, like a bolt of lightning, the answer hit me: my hairdresser’s son doesn’t need to try harder. He needs to focus on doing a few specific hard things.
By ‘specific hard things’, I mean concrete behaviours he can do right now (or at a specific point in time) to improve his understanding of his school subjects.
For example, if he wanted to start a home study routine, here are some concrete behaviours I’d recommend he try:
These are just a few behaviours that come to mind when I think about “trying harder” with your studies.
Doing these concrete behaviours just once won’t make you go from good to great. But you’ll be surprised by how much meaningful progress you can make in a single, effective study session.
We live in a world where comfort and convenience are increasingly normalised. We expect things, including learning, to be easy.
You don’t have to cook (thank you Uber Eats).
You don’t have to move (thank you car).
You don’t have to experience boredom (thank you social media and Netflix).
You don’t even have to use your brain anymore (thank you ChatGPT and Claude).
By outsourcing tasks that require physical and cognitive effort, we may save time, but there are hidden costs.
People are losing their skills, destroying their health, and atrophying their brains, all while being flooded with unhealthy levels of dopamine. I’d even go as far as saying that people are losing their lives and what it means to be human.
In every moment, we have a choice: we can do the easy thing that gives us a quick dopamine hit, or we can do the hard thing that gives us a slow and healthy release of dopamine.
When you wake up, you can scroll on your phone or do some physical activity.
At the end of the day, you can order takeaway that is engineered to light up the reward pathways in your brain, or you can prepare a healthy homemade meal.
When you’ve got a spare 30 minutes, you can watch some YouTube or go for a walk outside.
You can use ChatGPT to write your essay, or you can use your brain and build your skills.
You can talk to an AI chatbot and have a friction-free relationship, or you can organise to meet up with a friend.
Every time you choose the hard thing over the easy thing, you build your confidence. You can trust yourself to do hard things and survive them. Over time, as you build your skills, those hard things don’t feel as hard as they once did.
For instance, if the Internet goes down and you’re not dependent on ChatGPT, you know you’ll be okay. You can rely on yourself to think and entertain yourself (thank you brain).
This is why I’m committing to doing hard things this year. I’m challenging myself, and I know I’ll be better for it.
Just to be clear, I’m not talking about self-harm or inflicting extreme pain on myself.
I’m referring to activities that bring up a cringey discomfort and make me think, “Ahhh, I don’t want to do this!”.
These include activities that require sustained focus and/or mental and physical effort, such as writing an article, going for a run, riding my bike to the shops, and meditating.
The simplest way is to ease into doing those hard things. Turn those hard things into tiny habits.
Here is a list of tiny habits for hard things I’m focusing on doing:
Some of these things may not seem like much, but all of these behaviours require mental and physical effort. Remember, there’s a much easier alternative: sitting, tapping, swiping, and scrolling on your phone.
For instance, I don’t need to chop vegetables and cook my meals. I could eat out or order food to my door. This would save me time and effort (cooking my meals can feel like a part-time job).
But I know I would suffer at some point (physically, mentally, and financially).
Chopping vegetables and cooking take effort, but it helps me cultivate calm. When done with a focused mind (not listening to podcasts or talking on the phone), I really enjoy these activities.
If I were to outsource these activities, I’d be going backwards, because I’d most likely lose my valuable cooking skills over time.
Similarly, writing articles like this one feels hard. But hard doesn’t mean bad. It’s satisfying to focus my mind, wrestle with ideas, and write.
Many of us mistakenly believe that an easy life is a better life. But it’s not. A life where you are constantly pursuing pleasure and taking the easy path can lead to anhedonia.
Anhedonia is the inability to experience pleasure in things that were once pleasurable (e.g., a homecooked meal or a sunset). Some people describe it as life in greyscale.
It turns out the more pleasure we pursue, the more pleasure we need and the more pain we experience.
It may sound counterintuitive, but pursuing hard things makes you feel more motivated and more positive about life.
As humans, we want to challenge ourselves. We’re wired for it.
Psychiatrist Dr Anna Lembke encourages us to take on difficult, even painful, activities as a way of “aligning our primitive wiring with our modern ecosystem”. She writes:
“We are survivors. We’re wired for struggle, especially of physical nature. Yet we live in a world in which we’re largely insulated from pain. And not just pain, but also discomfort of any kind. Everything is supplied to us at the touch of a finger. Now we struggle just to get up off the couch. Our modern ecosystem incentivizes inactivity. Inactivity breeds lethargy. Lethargy breeds anxiety and depression. We must fight against this.”
So, forget trying harder. Work out a few hard things you want to do and focus on doing them instead.
It has made me a calmer, better focused, happier, more mentally flexible, and creative person.
It takes anywhere from 20 to 45 minutes to do this practice, but trust me, this morning practice is time well spent.
It usually feels hard at first, but by the end, I feel strong, confident, and clearer in my thinking. As clichéd as it sounds, this practice helps me be the best version of myself.
What simple morning practice am I talking about?
I’m talking about my movement practice.
Before I do any work (e.g., check my email or messages, read the news, or deliver a presentation), I make myself do some physical activity.
I usually run on a treadmill, ride a stationary bike, or lift heavy weights.
I can’t say I’m leaping out of bed with joy at the thought of exercising. There’s always a little voice in my head that grumbles, “Ugh, do we have to do this?”
But I push forward and lace up my running shoes because I know that by the end, I’ll feel amazing.
Twenty minutes into my movement practice, my husband says he can hear me ‘whooping’ with joy from the other end of the house.
The natural ‘runner’s high’ people talk about is real.
I can relate to Cultural Historian Vybarr Cregan-Reid when he describes his running highs in the following way:
“They are as strong as bootleg whisky. They make you want to stop everyone that you pass and tell them how beautiful they are, what a wonderful world this is, isn’t it great to be alive?”
The amazing thing is that a year ago, I couldn’t run for more than a minute without being completely out of breath. Now I can run for 45 minutes nonstop. And I’m hooked.
How did I get here? And more importantly, how can you cultivate a movement practice that leaves you feeling energised, less stressed, and in a great mood?
Do you remember, as a child, running around the playground, swinging on the monkey bars, and playing games like Chasey?
You did these things naturally and effortlessly, and you enjoyed doing them. No one had to force you to move.
You ran for the sake of running. You ran because it made you feel good and fully alive.
This is what movement does for me. It makes me feel excited about life.
I’ve discovered this is the key to building a long-lasting movement practice: you have to find delight in moving your body. And you have to hang in there for long enough for the delight to show up.
You see, the delight probably won’t be there straightaway. Instead, what you’ll usually find is that there’s some discomfort and resistance for the first 10 – 15 minutes of your movement practice.
But if you persist, trust me, the delight will come knocking at your door and sweep through your house like a group of wild party animals.
Just to be clear, you don’t have to run to experience this delightful feeling. Any moderate-intensity physical activity, such as riding a bike, dancing, and swimming, will do the job.
In the book The Joy of Movement, psychologist Dr Kelly McGonigal makes it clear that you can achieve a natural high from any sustained physical activity.
She says the key to experiencing this ‘exercise induced euphoria’ is to put in the time and effort. She writes:
“You just have to do something that is moderately difficult for you and stick with it for at least twenty minutes. That’s because the runner’s high isn’t a running high. It’s a persistence high.”
The thing about movement is that it takes effort. But that effort is what delivers the delight!
When you do hard things for a sustained period of time, your brain rewards you by serving up a cocktail of feel good chemicals, such as dopamine, endorphins, serotonin, noradrenaline, and endocannabinoids.
From an evolutionary perspective, this makes sense.
Life for our ancient ancestors was hard work and often dangerous. To survive, they had to forage and hunt for food, find water, build shelters, and run from wild predators.
These neurochemical rewards (e.g, dopamine and serotonin) would keep them going. And keep going they did!
Hunter-gatherers clocked up thousands of steps each day. They were constantly on the move because their survival depended on it.
But here’s what I find really interesting . . .
Despite being incredibly active, hunter-gatherers’ brains were wired for comfort and laziness. This wiring served them well, especially when food was hard to obtain. Conserving energy through sedentary behaviour was a survival trait.
This explains why most of us feel resistance to the idea of physical exercise.
Fast-forward 30,000 years to today: our modern environment is completely different from that of our ancient ancestors, but our brains are still the same (i.e. wired for comfort).
Want food? You can order it with the tap of a button. In our modern world, you don’t have to move much, if at all.
Because of our ancient wiring, some resistance to physical activity will always be there. We just have to push ourselves to do the hard things first (e.g., exercise), knowing that the rewards will come if we persist for long enough.
As you start moving your body, during those first few minutes, you may find yourself thinking, “Why am I doing this? This doesn’t feel good!”
To which, I say: Can you feel your heart pounding in your chest? Can you hear yourself huffing and puffing? Is that sweat dropping off your face and onto the ground?
Fabulous! You’re on the right track. Hang in there. It won’t be long before your mood starts to shift in a dramatic way.
I have come to love the feeling of my clothes soaked in sweat after I exercise. There was a time when I thought that was gross. But not anymore.
Those sweaty, stinky clothes are evidence that I’ve worked hard. It’s proof that I pushed myself and the feel good chemicals are flowing through my brain and will continue to do so for the next few hours.
In The Official Dopamine Nation Workbook, psychiatrist Dr Anna Lembke explains what happens at a neurochemical level when you do hard things. She writes:
“While engaging in these kinds of painful activities [exercise, meditation, ice-cold water plunges, etc], our dopamine levels rise slowly over the latter half of the activity and remain elevated for hours afterward before going back down to baseline, without ever going below baseline.”
This is why Dr Lembke starts her day by avoiding her phone and doing the hard things first. She said on a recent podcast interview:
“I won’t even go on my laptop until I’ve exercised, eaten breakfast, I’ve read a paper that gets delivered to my house, I’ve made my bed . . . I’ve done all the things I need to do to centre myself for the day.”
Similarly, I equate my movement practice with getting my brain ready for the day and accessing parts of myself that would otherwise lie dormant.
Sometimes movement helps me to experience a wonderful flow state. I feel in tune with my mind and body. Things just feel easier.
But even if I don’t reach a state of flow, moving helps me be more present and show up as the best version of myself in the other areas of my life, such as my work and when I’m with my family.
My movement practice is something I’ve come to genuinely enjoy. It’s not something I need to rush through to tick off a list.
If you’re reading this and thinking “But I don’t like movement” and “I’m not an athletic person”, I get it because I wasn’t always a super active person.
There was a time when movement felt like a grind. I felt clumsy and awkward. It was something I just had to get done.
So, what led to this dramatic shift in how I related to movement?
I shifted from training for my appearance (to stay lean) to training to feel good.
Psychologists would say I became intrinsically motivated to move rather than extrinsically motivated.
When you’re extrinsically motivated, you’re moving to lose weight, achieve a particular look (e.g., the fitness influencer look), or have a sexy body. You’re trying to reach some place in the future, and it often takes you to a place of misery.
In my early twenties, I became friends with a businesswoman who was also a female bodybuilder. I was inspired by her discipline and focus, so when she invited me to attend a Bodybuilding competition, I jumped at the chance. I thought, “Why not?”
I should point out that this was in the pre-social-media era, when you couldn’t easily watch videos of people flexing their muscles online. You had to go to competitions like these, or watch a documentary (rented from a video store), to get a glimpse into the world of bodybuilding.
As we sat in the audience at the Bodybuilding Championships, one perfectly chiselled body after another walked onto the stage and flexed their muscles. I felt inspired.
Without knowing what went into getting visible abs and perfectly toned bodies like these, I remember thinking, “I want a body like that!”
A couple of hours later, the judges announced the bodybuilding champions, and shortly after, the party kicked off as everyone hit the dance floor, including the bodybuilders I had watched strut their stuff across the stage.
At one point, I found myself dancing next to the Female Bodybuilding Champion. She was holding her massive trophy, and I couldn’t help but notice that her face had a pained expression and she was struggling to move and stay upright.
She’d just been crowned Bodybuilding Champion of the Year, so I thought, “Why is she looking so sad and weak?”
I spun around, told her she looked amazing, and congratulated her. I then asked her (shouting over the loud music) how she was feeling. Her answer took me by surprise. She said:
“I’m so tired and hungry. I just want to go home and eat a pizza!”
That’s when I realised she had been starving herself for the competition, and just like that, the idea of achieving a body like hers quickly vanished from my mind.
To achieve the ‘perfect’ look, bodybuilders and fitness influencers often severely restrict their diets, which can be harmful.
In the book How Not to Die (Too Soon), Professor and Personal Trainer Devi Sridhar states:
“For most women, achieving visible abs requires an extremely low body fat percentage (less than 17 per cent, below the 20-23 per cent healthy range), which is often linked to irregular menstruation, brittle nails, feeling faint and disrupted hormone production.”
So, unless you want to feel faint and constantly crave pizza, think twice before setting a goal to look like a bodybuilding champion or a fitness influencer!
When the focus is on aesthetics, you undermine the joy of movement.
In the DW documentary Muscles – More than Power and Pumping Iron, social media influencer and former Bikini model champion Sophia Thiel shared her experience of training to achieve the ‘perfect’ body. She states:
“When you train for the sake of your appearance, it can quickly tear you apart and take away all the joy that the sport normally brings with it.”
Post competition, Sophia found it difficult to maintain her competitive form and stick to her competition diet. Her weight began to fluctuate, and the nasty online comments about her appearance started to take their toll on her mental health.
At some point, Sophia shifted her focus from her appearance to how lifting weights made her feel. She said:
“Today my motivation for working out is very different. It brings a lot more balance to my life. I can deal with stress better. The way I carry myself is completely different, which gives me self-confidence. My sleep and concentration are better too. In other words, training improves my quality of life.”
Making the mental shift, like Sophia did, from wanting to look good to feeling good, is a total game-changer.
But in our image-obsessed world, it’s easy to lose sight of the mind and mood-altering effects of physical movement (spending less time on social media and unfollowing fitness influencers can help with this mental shift).
Harvard Professor John Ratey sums it up nicely when he says physical exercise is like “a little bit of Prozac and a little bit of Ritalin”. It does wonders for your brain (especially your attention and mood) with no nasty side effects.
To sum up
Instead of reaching for your phone first thing in the morning, try reaching for your running shoes, a set of dumbbells, or a yoga mat.
Developing a morning movement practice is one of the simplest and most powerful things you can do to benefit your brain and improve the quality of your life.
But the key is to find delight in moving for the sake of moving. You need to persist with the movement for long enough – at least 20 minutes – for your brain to reward you with a dose of feel good chemicals.
When movement becomes inherently enjoyable, you’ll find yourself doing it more often. Before you know it, it will be a non-negotiable part of your day. In the words of Dr Kelly McGonigal, “regular exposure to exercise will over time teach your brain to like, want, and need it”.
Image 6: “2013 Fall Classic Natural Bodybuilding Competition – U.S. Army Garrison Humphreys, South Korea – 28 Sep 2013” by USAG-Humphreys is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
