I have as hard a time finding the motivation to workout and be active as I do finding the motivation to write a thousand word articles, and now that I think about it, it’s for at least a few of the same reasons. Now it would be easy to blame it entirely on being “lazy” or “dramatic” as I’m sure many people *cough* your dads *cough* might like to throw at you but I don’t it’s that simple. At least in my case, like with writing, working out and being active is something I really wanna do but I get so bogged down by thoughts that discourage me in a number of ways that are really hard to get around. One of the tricks my brain uses is it distracts me with other things and these things are usually “productive things”. It could be washing the dishes, or making my bed, doing some laundry, folding clothes, taking out the trash, working on other work I may have, reading (I gotta be really looking for a distraction if I pick up a book lol) and the list of get out of jail free cards goes on and on.
Those are the “productive” ones though, the “unproductive things” could be going down youtube rabbit holes, watching movies or playing games, eating, going on social media and wasting the day responding in a millisecond to friends, or when I’m feeling extra down I may just sleep or lay in bed and do nothing but think to myself “you really should be working out right now”. Even now I keep going back between instagram and here after every sentence because I just really don’t want to write this just like when I finally get down and do some pushups and tell myself. “I’m gonna do 10” but give up at 5 or just half ass through the set or if I say, “I’m going to do 25 squats” but whether it’s squats, push-ups, sprints or whatever other workout set or even if I planned to go on a walk I always either discourage myself or procrastinate before I’ve even started or I’ll start and give up very easily almost like my brain coming with the excuse of “it’s too hard” or “it’s gonna take too long to see results anyway” and whatever other discouraging line you can insert there but there is one thing that can help me jump over these mental barriers and its the same thing that creates them, my curse/gift of overthinking and just like when I overthink myself into not doing something, I can do the same into doing it and one of the few things that can create this change for me is my fear of death and specifically my fear of getting older.
It started when I turned 24 earlier this year when someone told me “damn dude in a year you’ll be 25!” this in turn cranked on my overthinking machine and Yes I had a midlife crisis at 24, go figure, which put me in a depressed state for a day but then it lit a light bulb in my head and this lightbulb sparked a question. “How do I live longer and age slower?” In asking this and beginning research the first places I tackled were my diet which I have completely changed both in the types of foods I eat and don’t eat, the frequency of how often I eat, and the amount I eat. And believe me making changes to my diet had all the same psychological barriers until I started really grasping that if we want to live a long life and stay young as long as possible it starts with the food but the exercise is part of and there’s real numbers and statistics to it which make it undeniable and once you start understanding that it’s like ok either you dont care then fine dont complain later but if you do care then just like myself you have to get it however we look later good or bad and however long we live depends on how we take care of ourselves now.
Though I am someone who needs specific things to focus on in order for my overthinking abilities to over think me into actually following through like I did with the eating which is where this article by CNN comes into the picture and don’t worry, this news at least isn’t fake lol. See what the article is about is how doing at just 30-60 minutes of a strength training workout a week can help you live longer which could be any exercise that increase strength and endurance such as deadlifts, hinges, swings, squats, lunges, pushups, dips, presses, rows or pull-ups, and even walking or running. First off I personally though strength training required weights but it really doesn’t which already saves some dread because if it’s hard enough to just do some micro workouts throughout the day then having to find the time and energy to go to the gym sounds just terrible no to mention it leaves too much space for you to get discouraged ya know?
Anyway the article goes more into detail explaining how in a study published by the british of sports medicine (it’s british so you gotta trust it) that just by doing 30-60 mins of any type of strength training a week had a 10-20% decrease in early death overall but not only that, but they also saw that it lowered the chance of people every having to deal with cancer, heart disease, and diabetes! The article continues with research added on by the American College of Sports Medicine (which is also pretty legit too) saying that doing the 30-60 of strength training plus adding in any amount of an aerobic activity will increase the odds to a 40% reduction in premature death, a 46% lower chance of getting heart disease, and a 28% lower chance of dying from cancer. And aerobic exercises could be as I mentioned before running and walking but also swimming and bikining if you’re into that. And keep in mind these studies and results in the article are from the bare minimum which stands to reason that if you did more than just 30-60 min it would only increase all those percentages and if you’d like to find out more about specifically why and what goes on in the body that creates these positive changes I implore you to read the article and maybe go off and try it out so you can live to 150 along with me!
Link:
https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/05/health/muscle-strengthening-exercises-disease-death-risk-wellness/index.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuXmYDGcoa8
