5 Ways to Make Exercise Less Boring

On this excerpt from their upcoming guide, I Know I Ought to Train, However…44 Causes We Don’t Transfer and The right way to Get Over Them, psychologist Dr. Diana Hill and motion professional Katy Bowman discover one cause we discover train so exhausting—and what we will do to savor the motion in each second.

Train feels monotonous and boring, and it’s the very last thing I need to do with my free time.

Sound acquainted? Imagine us, you’re not alone if you happen to really feel this manner. It’s exhausting to drum up motivation if you assume one thing is boring. No one needs to spend their free time doing monotonous and tedious duties! So, how can we make movement much less tedious and extra pleasurable—one thing you sit up for?

Savoring is a psychological device that may assist with altering our perspective. Let’s unpack this to remodel “Train is boring” into “I’m motivated to do that!”

The right way to Savor Train

You can also make motion much less boring by bringing consciousness to the complete expertise of transferring your physique…and savoring it. Savoring is the act of deliberately being attentive to, appreciating, and enhancing the constructive facets of an expertise. If you savor your expertise, it will increase your constructive feelings, helps with stress discount, and might flip even probably the most mundane experiences into pleasurable ones.

The important thing right here is to be absolutely current with pleasurable facets of what you might be doing—flexibly shining your consideration highlight on the great things. This doesn’t imply ignoring discomfort; it’s extra about attentional shift—which includes perspective-taking and being current. You get to decide on the place you place your consideration.

Do this proper now: 

1. Let your chin drop towards your chest, then gently deliver your proper ear towards your proper shoulder, then slowly take your left ear to your left shoulder. 
2. Discover: The place is the motion restricted? The place is it straightforward? 
3. Linger on the spots that might use somewhat additional love. Breathe into and across the areas which might be tight and chill out your shoulders. Shut your eyes and luxuriate within the probability to relaxation your thoughts as you roll. 
4. Have gratitude for this second to be along with your physique. Even probably the most monotonous issues can change into fascinating if you find yourself current for them and savor them.

There are 5 methods to savor an expertise, based on Erika Miyakawa, a Japanese psychologist who researches savoring: thanksgiving, basking, marveling, luxuriating, and understanding. All of them contain being fully present along with your expertise. Let’s discover how one can apply every of those to your motion or train.

5 Methods to Savor

Decide a bodily exercise that you simply often discover tedious or repetitive (for me, Diana, that is strolling in circles across the airport whereas ready to board, or ready throughout my son’s baseball follow whereas he’s doing drills). Now attempt to apply every of a lot of these savoring to it. Discover the way it modifications your expertise.

1. Thanksgiving: Respect the chance to maneuver your physique. Really feel gratitude for this opportunity to maneuver. Respect the place, individuals, and actions you get to have interaction with by transferring your physique.
2. Basking: Absorb emotions of delight at rising stronger in your physique with motion. Really feel the accomplishment of residing out your values, ending a difficult exercise, or assembly motion objectives.
3. Marveling: Let your self really feel awe by way of motion. Be amazed by the fantastic thing about nature, stunning sights, and the capabilities of your human physique.
4. Luxuriating: Benefit from the bodily and sensory pleasures of motion. Benefit from the good feeling of stretching your muscle mass, the discharge of stress and stress, the circulate of your physique, or the creativity of motion.
5. Understanding: Savor the knowledge that comes by way of transferring your physique—the information you achieve from interacting with new locations, contemporary faces, experiences, and challenges, or the information gained by studying about your self and your capacities.

The subsequent time you discover train a drag, pricey reader, do this savoring talent and focus your attention on the constructive facets of motion. An important issue is being absolutely current—shifting your consideration to right here and now, and the nice that may include transferring your physique.

This excerpt is from Diana Hill and Katy Bowman’s forthcoming guide I Know I Should Exercise, But…: 44 Reasons We Don’t Move and How to Get Over Them (Uphill Books, March 2025) and is reprinted with permission from the writer.