Mandi Baker, University of Manitoba
The new year starts for many by making resolutions to live healthier lives. This can mean getting fitter by joining a gym, signing up to Pilates classes or starting a new diet.
For many, these resolutions are hard to maintain and the new habits slip away. Unfortunately, there are many reasons why our best intentions fail; the kids get sick so you can’t get out for a class, the costs of equipment or membership become too steep, and kale just isn’t cutting it for dinner anymore. In the end, motivation for our new habits runs out.
When we choose activities for our leisure that do not bring intrinsic enjoyment and/or satisfaction, we find it hard to preserve. External motivations, like gaining a reward (a particular body shape) or avoiding a consequence (minimizing the risks related to heart health), can only take us so far.
When we do things that we truly love, that are aligned with our values and/or sense of self, or we would do even if no one was watching, then the chances of maintaining those physical activities are much higher. That means the goal of resolution-setting is to find the things that tap into our intrinsic motivations.
Another challenge to sticking with new health-related habits, is the very individual way that health is framed. Health is positioned as being not only an individual’s responsibility, but that the individual is to blame if they are unwell. While the medical model serves a purpose in identifying problems and addressing them, applying a deficiency-model rationality obscures critical awareness about the complex and many ways that social factors impact health.
Social models of health, such as The Social Determinants of Health by Dahlgreen & Whitehead (1991), demonstrate that not only do our physiology, lifestyle choices, social and community networks matter, but socio-economic, cultural and environmental conditions do too. This shifts the responsibilities for health away from loading individuals up on guilt to shared collective responsibilities among all strata of community, government and institutions for a population’s health.
The notion that health is an individual problem, or deficiency, can be isolating, making the work of an individual’s wellness goals an effort that they feel they must do alone, and against broad systemic constraints.
Sociologists have long warned us of how these ideas, among others, lead us to think and treat ourselves poorly when it comes to moving our (fabulous and functional) bodies. Blaming ourselves or seeing physical activity, fitness and health as beyond our reach is both demoralizing and demotivating. Let alone added layers of social, economic, geographical and political inequities. This can be as heavy, if not heavier, than anything you might “lift” at the gym.
Getting physically active for the first time, or after years, or only after the holidays means exercising your mental prowess. This list offers some insights into how to do the mental exercise to get your body moving and enjoying it:
Be in your body: be embodied. Often made popular by mindfulness movements, the idea is to slow down your sophisticated mental processing to focus on your five senses and simply be in the moment. This teaches our nervous systems to take a break from processing stressful stimulus.
Get active for no other reason than to enjoy yourself! Leisure theory tells us that seeking external rewards can make free time feel like work. Look for physical activity that brings you joy — make it the thing you look forward to rather than dread.
Focus on what your body can DO rather than how it looks. Views of beautiful, attractive or healthy bodies constantly change. Focusing on what your body can and does do (a strengths-based approach to vitality) can be a subtle yet powerful mental shift to improve your quality of life.
Find your activity people. Get active with people who share your philosophies about health. Find supportive people who don’t judge, who understand motivation’s ups and downs, who acknowledge that bodies come in different shapes and sizes AND that bodies are capable and beautiful things of joy.
Get outside. Science tells us that heart rates and worrying (anxiety, depression and rumination) come down when spending just a little time in nature. No need for remote corners of the Earth — just a walk down the street can make a big difference.
Engaging in physical activities that are joy-filled is not only a pleasure but can be a political act of hopefulness and self-respect. It acts to resist social norms about individuating discourses about health and associated assumptions of body shape, size and fitness.
Celebrating bodies in their diversity, getting out and enjoying movement, representing that healthy bodies are diverse and getting active with friends can all be political acts that celebrate countercultural ideas about health.
Movin’ and groovin’ with friends celebrates community and the value-altering, motivational shift of joy-filled embodiment and physical activity.
This subtle shift in thinking, and moving, could be the puzzle piece you’ve been missing for maintaining healthy habits.
Mandi Baker, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Kinesiology and Recreation Management, University of Manitoba
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
(The Conversation/HG)
