You signed up for a gym, but after a month you started skipping classes, and after two you decided not to renew your membership. Familiar situation? “You just don’t have enough willpower,” relatives and friends say. Maybe. But psychologists see other reasons in such contradictory relations with sports.
More and more Russians go in for sports. The all-Russian survey “VTsIOM-Sputnik” showed that over the past two years the number of physically active men and women has increased from 61% (2015) to 76%. And among 18-24-year-olds, even 97% of them are.
Every autumn we return to stadiums, sports fields and fitness clubs, determined to maintain or regain good shape and lead a healthy lifestyle. And we are sure: everything is in our hands, we just need to make an effort. Alas, for many of us, the good impulse comes to naught already in October. Are we really not able to show willpower, even if we understand that classes are necessary?
“Such contradictory relationships with sports speak primarily of the wrong motivation,” explains psychologist Angelina Chekalina, senior researcher at the Department of Psychology at Moscow State University. M.V. Lomonosov, psychotherapist at the IntuEat Center for Intuitive Eating. – If it is important for you how your body looks in the eyes of others, and you go in for sports more for the sake of achieving an external result, whether it is a change in weight or figure, then the enthusiasm will quickly dry up. For those who are focused on internal goals – health promotion, better well-being, it is easier to maintain it.
But the catch is that our psyche just understanding the benefits is not enough. “In order to really get involved in your chosen type of physical activity, whether it’s running, aikido or going to the gym, it’s important to find what you like in it,” the expert continues. – Otherwise, the neurotransmitter dopamine, which is responsible for pleasure, will not be produced and we will not mobilize ourselves for long sessions. As in the case when the sport is pleasant, but not particularly needed.
The main thing is to choose a sport that will bring bodily and psychological satisfaction and will not harm your health.
And when desires and goals do not coincide, we catch ourselves that we are periodically late for classes on the vibration platform, we forget about the group water aerobics schedule … And then we scold ourselves for weak character and feel guilty.
How to avoid these traps? Listen more carefully to yourself in order to calculate the load, and most importantly, choose a sport that will bring bodily and psychological satisfaction and will not harm your health. In a word, our motivation will be more stable if it is not “I have to lose weight”, but rather, “I want to move more, I like to dance, pedal.”
“If, for example, cardio workouts are shown to you, but they are unpleasant for you, why force yourself and turn the effort into violence? asks Angelina Chekalina. “To strengthen the heart muscle and easy breathing, it is quite possible to go in for sports walking or swimming.”