Hi there!
Today I will share with you the story of my dramatic fight with my own brain for developing an exercise habit. All my friends know, that I am very hedonistic person, which means that I strongly prefer to do only things I really enjoy, and all other tasks mean a big fight with my self-indulgent brain: “Lena, do you really-really need it? Wouldn’t it be much better to skip it? Let’s skip it! Oh, please, imagine how nice it would be not to do it right now! What? It will be bad for you later? C’mon! Live here and now! …oh, well…OK, OK… but remember, I don’t like doing it, don’t like! Don’t like!! You push me too hard!!!... No, I’m NOT excited at all!..I hate it, hate it!!....are we there yet? No? oooooooohhhhh……aaaaaa….” And so on.
Speaking of exercise, I always thought that I have very different body chemistry that all others have. Others have their body filled with endorphins after a good exercise, and my body got only exhaustion, without even trace of that famous post-exercise euphoria. Even more, regular pushing myself to walk on a treadmill, gives me more pains in my body and even more panic attacks! I was totally confused by this fact, even discussed it with my doctor, but there were no answers.
The main thing which made my cardio/weight loss routine so unbearable was the boredom in combination with the signals that my untrained body sent to my stubborn brain: “I’m not comfortable, I have low energy, I’d rather be seating on the couch”. And one part of my brain was reacting fiercely:” “AAAA!!! - how many minutes of this torture left? Fifteeeeen???!!! Oh, NOOOO…” But other part of my brain was set to the state “we really need to do this walk, remember, there is diabetes in the family!” – so, it was constant fight inside my conscious mind, which literally took all my energy.
I tried almost everything to cheat my brain – I gave it audio books, movies, talk shows, energetic music – just to get it busy-busy. Nothing worked, the fight stayed and drained my energy to that black hole.
And finally….
When we moved to Woodside, I was so impressed by the surroundings that I started to develop my personal retreat–like environment. I decided it would be a shame to live in place like this and not use it for healing my soul and body. So I started collecting meditation and relaxation music from YouTube and other sources, focusing on stuff, which sounded VERY positive.
And once I mistakenly went to walk with this music on my MP3 player. Guess what happened? YESSS!! My brain was in a very peaceful trance all the way!! So next time I repeated the experiment on my treadmill. I went on a treadmill with relaxation “massage” kind of music - and it worked again. And then again and again. One time I tried guided breathing relaxation with Paul Collier music right after my 45 minutes cardio routine. For about 10 minutes I was meditating and giving myself that stupid positive affirmations about how happy, healthy, and talented I am – and after that I found myself in absolutely, absolutely marvelous state of calm and happy mind, floating on the cloud of happy feelings about myself and my life, which stayed with me all that night. No any mental therapist or massage could give me that feeling. Gradually in a month of these experiments I literally got addicted to my treadmill exercise, and started thinking of it not as a torture, but as a big pleasure.
So, if you like me, here what you need to get addicted to exercise:
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Treadmill. I have it at home, it’s not fancy at all, in fact it’s very old, simply because it works, never got broken.
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Relaxation music, some of positive relaxing massage piano, some of Llewellyn, some of Café del Mar, Paul Collier, or whatever you would find suitable for relaxing massage or spa.
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IPod or MP3 player with the cheapest SILICONE earbuds, like on a picture below ($3.99 or so). Why those – even if you have gardeners right under your window, those plugs give you a sense of a music playing in a quiet place.
That’s it.
Good luck!
Love,
Lena.
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