How long has it been since you’ve actually savoured the chance of getting off the couch and pumping your limbs around? We’ve all gone through spells where exercise felt like an entrenched part of the routine. It’s great, and lifts your performance to the point where there’s not much you can do wrong. The problem is that the fix is temporary, and rarely lasts for longer than a few weeks. Soon enough you’re back at the usual grind.
Can this be adjusted to outstay its welcome, or is this just the natural cycle that the mind needs to follow?
In Genesis Fitness, I look to build fitness from the ground up. And it all starts from a culturing health-driven mentality. There’s no better way of making sure you’re building a physique that can stretch past a summer.
The brain can’t be relied on to produce this mentality regardless of circumstances, you have to create the right environment for motivation to prosper. In short, it comes down to habits created specifically to improve healthy brain function. I’ll outline a few of those below.
1. Go To Sleep Earlier
Make a point to sleep as early as it’s convenient for you. Hitting the hay within a few hours of sunset syncs in better with the REM cycle, offering a better chance of getting in periods of refreshing deep sleep. This emphasis on quality means sleeping from 10 pm for 7 hours might give you more rest than a 12 o’clock bedtime that lasts for 8 hours.
If the net result is you waking up and landing on two feet, then it’s well worth the sacrifice of an hour or two of Netflix.
2. Limit Screen Time
It’s a little rich for me to preach this from a laptop, and it’s a tricky thing to accomplish as it is. Screens are set so deep into our lifestyle and work, that cutting back can feel impossible. What else are you meant to do while sitting on the throne?
There’s a solid reason for this abstinence that goes beyond making room for productivity and lowering the chance of getting body shamed by Instagram. Click-through content spike dopamine releases, which is the hormone that dictates our reward-seeking behaviour, hence motivation. Excessive amounts of clicking is inevitably diminishing the effects of dopamine secretion, dulling your ability to get psyched for meaningful tasks.
So if you can simply wind back on the rapid-fire web browsing, you’ll be steadily breaching new levels of motivation. Steady the fingers and increase your ability to dominate fitness tasks.
3. Practice Meditation
This is always going to be a viable route for attaining brain focus and motivation. You don’t have to be too specific, just sit down and observe your breathing. Or even take a walk and watch the footsteps. The ultimate goal is to get a little detached from the hustle and bustle, and see the world in the present. The benefits are vast. The brain itself will show visible development, and your capacity to adjust yourself to different social situations will improve.
If you need to mentally gear up for the gym, meditation will help you switch into a performance mindset and enable better mind muscle control through the workout. Think of it as putting on a hat, or adopting a persona.
It starts with something as simple as a 10-15 minute daily break from reality. Whatever your lifestyle, there’s going to be some minutes running spare. Especially if you’ve worked your way through the previous habit.
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To see the rest of my fit fixes, head to my blog. I have more than a hundred articles that can all help you get stronger, smarter, and stress-free. Thanks for reading.
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