Much has been researched on fitness and health and all the benefits that come from it. This blog regularly reports on the latest findings in Science as well as the more traditional stuff. How good is it all though if we don't do it?
This is the information age, where we can know more now about more subjects than ever before. We can train ourselves, school ourselves, read, read, read and familiarise ourselves with almost anything we have an interest in. We need also to do, do, do, if we want to complete the understanding of it. This is never more true than with exercise. The body just won't adapt unless we actually physically move.
So, what we need to find is some willpower to get up and go do something. It's not quite that easy though, as you may know.
Some Psychologists believe that through exercising using techniques such as Yoga you can increase your willpower. Dr. Kelly McGonigal, author and Stanford University psychologist and lecturer, is one such person. She promotes the use of yoga and mindfulness as a basis for improving willpower. Click here for her website. “We're so burnt out dealing with everyday stress that we don't have the
energy to develop willpower for what matters,” McGonigal says. “The best
way to get willpower is to rest, to stop running around all the time,
and to reset yourself so you can pursue what matters most to you.”
She has also advised something as simple as sitting against a wall, with your legs raised against it, watching the breath for 5 to 15 minutes a day could be enough to start with. Using this as a basis she explains we can try to carry that awareness into our everyday life and notice moments of discomfort when we may have cravings we would rather avoid. To summarise further, these moments can give us an opportunity to use our 'willpower response' (mostly a controlled decision) rather than our 'stress response' (mostly an uncontrolled reaction) and aligning ourselves with the things we would like to accomplish. The article finishes by quoting Dr. McGonigal as saying “Really, that's what yoga is giving us tools for.” online article
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