What’s Holding People Back From Exercising?

A look at the messages being sent.

I offer many apologies for missing a posting last week. My mom went through surgery that resulted in a four night hospital stay. She came home Friday, my usual posting day and things have only started to slow down a week later.

 With her gone to get better, the morning and evening care taking activities for her two dogs fell to me. I was able to wake at the usual hour and go to bed at the same time. During the day I worked as usual, with the exception of the surgery day which saw me twitching about the waiting room for seven hours I’d expected to be no more than four. The evenings consisted of taking care of the unruly canines, making dinner, and visiting my mom.

On the surface it’s all pretty standard. Mild, minimally limiting changes which were temporary in nature. And I had to keep telling myself that as the week progressed and I grew more tired, moody, irritable, and fatigued.

As someone who lives with and manages anxiety—I do not allow myself to “suffer” from it—those symptoms are well-known adversaries, but this was more than that. I had a feeling I knew what it was by Wednesday when I found myself halfway to tears at each minor inconvenience. I needed to work out. Not wanted, needed.

Geez, I’d only missed two of my usual days. Couldn’t I keep it together for just one off week? Well, no. Not only was I not going to the gym, I was also more sedentary due the extra time spent sitting at the hospital. I’d let go of one of my main coping skills and it acted quickly.

I was already tired out by the stress of extra duties and general worry—surgeries are scary, recovery is risky. Inactivity increased the effects tenfold. My energy zapped, concentration reduced, and productivity plummeted.

I’m not writing all of this to complain. It was a necessary but temporary change that I didn’t mind making. Plus, I’ve gotten back into the swing of it all with some determination. I’m writing this anecdote because it hit me so intensely how important exercise is for my mental health and I know it’s not just me!

In theory, the moral of my story is something like, “exercise is good for your mental health, do it!” If it  were as easy as just getting out there and doing it then gyms would stay packed all year long, parks would be filled with runners, and it wouldn’t be one of the top New Year’s resolutions time and again. While I’ve experienced firsthand that exercise is good and should be done regularly, that’s not the moral of this story nor is it the ending.

Why? Because that message is already out there. Do a search of “exercise and mental health” and you’re bound to find a wealth of knowledge telling you the two are connected. The experts tend to agree about the benefits of exercise;

It lifts mood via feel-good chemicals in the brain. Dr. Gingell wrote in an article for Psychology Today that exercise stimulates endorphins and enkephalins. If you’re not yet familiar with these, they’re the natural compounds your brain produces that help manage pain and stress. In other words, they help you cope when life gets tough.

Exercise feeds the brain. In the same article, Dr. Gingell asserts that it also improves blood flow to the brain delivering oxygen allowing for increased development. Basically, it’s just one more muscle you’re working out and building.

It leads to reduction in loneliness. Whether you go to the gym or enlist a workout buddy, this can be a great way to reduce loneliness and isolation that is commonly associated with depression. This provides a structured way to increase contact with others. See the article.

And so much more…I don’t want to make this whole article about the benefits of exercise for mental health because, as I said, you can look that up easily and find a plethora of information. This scholarly article simply lists out many of the benefits. It touches on everything from improved sleep, to stress relief, to increased stamina and beyond.

Now, to the real focus of this article; the fact that, despite all the evidence supporting the use of exercise to manage mental health, there is still a great deal of resistance to it. I don’t know how much, it’s merely an observation. But I do know what I’ve seen and read.

I often come across memes demanding others not suggest exercise as a way to treat their mental illness symptoms, finding it an affront. If the reduction in numbers at the gym from January to March are any indication, it’s not something people make a long-term priority. The numbers back that up. In the United States it is estimated only about 23% of adults are getting the recommended amount of physical activity per week based on data from 2010 to 2015 reviewed by the Centers for Disease Control researchers.

It makes sense, that’s the first thing that went for me when last week got tough. It was the first thing to go when I was planning my wedding. It seems like I’m not alone in this experience.Yet, exercise literally helps you manage stress. Shouldn’t that be the first thing we run to when stressed? With all the information and public initiatives out there as well as the movement in mental health services to incorporate total wellness into treatment, you’d think exercise would be the front line behavior change.

So why isn’t it?

I researched and the answers are wide and varied.

Genetics is working against you. In a review of the findings of 2017 study, it is explained that some people have a genetic predisposition to not benefit much from typical exercise. With higher levels of a naturally produced protein, it was found in mice and later in women that there was a reduced benefit to exercise.

It seems this was based on aerobic exercise and it’s unclear if it would apply to low-impact, non-cardio activities such as yoga. Still, the findings certainly demonstrates how people with this resistance to exercise benefits may not look upon working out as a worthwhile option for mental wellness.

You have good reasons. There is a list of reasons not to exercise and they’re typically valid. Ten of them are examined in this writing but the author doesn’t just state them, she also gives suggestions on how to overcome them. Not motivated? Set up a reward system. Too overwhelming? Start small. These two are the first ones that came to my mind when considering this dilemma and I still agree this could be a big part of what people deal with.

You don’t know what the expectation should be. I know for people living with the mental health conditions that see benefits from exercise, such as anxiety and depression, it is hard to be let down by the prospects that gave you hope. You might have the wrong idea of how quickly exercise can act. And it’s not your fault because the information is minimal and contradictory. It’s been said it works as fast as five minutes after exercise is completed all the way to four weeks out following consistent 45 minute sessions, 3 times weekly. The true answer probably lies somewhere in each individual’s experience.

The message is worded wrong. This is my final thought and the one I landed on as I considered this topic. What if people who are in the throes of certain mental illnesses can’t hear the positive aspects of exercise because the brain is too focused on negativity? Depression and anxiety tend to be particularly negativity-focused.

I got to thinking back to the most basic concepts of therapy and the first step jumped out at me. Meet people where they are. If a person is in a negative mind-set, then focus the message on the negative…and taking it away.

Talking about how much working out makes a person feel more energetic probably sounds exhausting to someone who is dealing with hypersomnia and sleeping more than normal. What about forming the message to say that exercise makes exhaustion less terrible. Not better, because “better” might be too far from view at this point. The same can go for saying it raises endorphins and makes you happier. Instead, try stating that it can lift the heavy cloud up a bit. Just a general statement of what will be reduced rather than what will be gained. It’s hard to put much stock in gains when negative thoughts creep in but reduction is a more tangible concept.

I don’t know if I’m on the right track but I’m certain it’s time to change tactics. If some 77% of people in the USA are not getting enough physical activity despite all the research, public messages, and school policies, something has to give. The moral of the story is that the message needs to change and adapt to what we know about people and their needs to make it effective.

Works Cited

Blackwell, Debra L., and Tainya, Clarke C.. “State Variation in Meeting the 2008 Federal Guidelines for Both Aerobic and Muscle-Strengthening Activities Through Leisure-Time Physical Activity Among Adults Aged 18–64: United States, 2010–2015.” National Health Statistics Reports, no. 112, 28 June 2018, pp. 1–21., www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhsr/nhsr112.pdf.

“Exercise and Mental Health.” Healthdirect, www.healthdirect.gov.au/exercise-and-mental-health.

Gingell, Sarah. “How Your Mental Health Reaps the Benefits of Exercise.” Psychology Today, Sussex Publishers, 22 Mar. 2018, www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/what-works-and-why/201803/how-your-mental-health-reaps-the-benefits-exercise.

Jaines, Kira. “Ten Reasons People Do Not Exercise.” LIVESTRONG.COM, Leaf Group, www.livestrong.com/article/370670-ten-reasons-people-do-not-exercise/.

Misu, Hirofumi, et al. “Deficiency of the Hepatokine Selenoprotein P Increases Responsiveness to Exercise in Mice through Upregulation of Reactive Oxygen Species and AMP-Activated Protein Kinase in Muscle.” Nature Medicine, vol. 23, no. 4, 27 Feb. 2017, pp. 508–516., doi:10.1038/nm.4295.

Weir, Kirsten. “The Exercise Effect.” PsycEXTRA Dataset, vol. 42, no. 11, Dec. 2011, p. 48., doi:10.1037/e725332011-011.

Whiteman, Honor. “Why Do Some People Fail to Respond to Exercise?” Medical News Today, MediLexicon International, 1 Apr. 2017, www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/316693.php.

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3 Ways Looking Good Feels Good

A few months ago, back when it was still cold where I’m from, I committed myself to re-connecting with my sense of style. Working to pay grad school out of pocket and save to (finally) buy a house, I kept my shopping limited. Most of my work attire came from thrift stores and sales racks. Not that I didn’t amass an excellent wardrobe. Nothing of the sort! It’s just, well, it was an excellent wardrobe for someone else. I focused on finding something presentable and cheap, not something that fit the me I am inside.

Inside, I was still that eight year old misfit watching The Craft and dreaming of one day looking just like Fairuza Balk’s Nancy. Minimal spending and professional work environments had all but crushed the dark goth soul in me. I looked and felt normal. It simply wouldn’t do, and so I redeveloped my winter wardrobe to be both professional and fulfilling. I looked and felt great.

Then along comes the warm winds of summertime to cast a balmy cloud.

My breezy apparel has taken me back to feeling dull. I’m fighting with the closet once more and spending too much time sneering at my drawers. It’s got me thinking about the impact of appearance on mindset. I definitely know it’s powerful or else I wouldn’t have been obsessed with goth dress and culture for these past 20 plus years.

But what exactly is the connection between looking good and feeling good?

It changes how you think

In a 2015 study entitled, “The Cognitive Consequences of Formal Clothing,” researchers found a potential link between wearing formal clothing and an increase in abstract processing. Abstract processing, rather than concrete, is more closely connected with long-term decision making. The conclusion of this impacts how people interact socially due to a perceived distance, leading to what one might interpret as more thoughtful, creative, or polite interactions. A feeling of power may also play a factor. Application of this to real life is not fully addressed as the sample size was small but the promise of the work does suggest that the way we dress can influence our interactions and, thereby, our outcomes which can be mood (and life) changing.

For more information, this article breaks it down.

It impacts others’ responses

Certainly, the opinions of others’ shouldn’t frequently be a major deciding factor in how we care for ourselves. However, humans are social animals and others’ opinions do affect us in many areas. Working off of previous research suggesting that people make quick judgments of others based on non-verbal cues, researchers studied the interaction of posture and clothing on perceptions. In the 2016 article, it was found that a mixture of being smartly dressed and adopting strong or neutral posture developed positive impression of competency. The potential impact of getting positive feedback at work or in a pastime based upon how your dressing could have influence on mood and self-image.

It defines specific characteristics

Karen Pine, author of Mind What You Wear: The Psychology of Fashion, asserts in her book that people take on the characteristics associated with the clothes they wear. Consider how you hold your posture, sit, and walk going from jeans and a t-shirt to formal wear. Put on a nurse’s uniform and level of caring may increase because the outfit is associated with the helping profession. The same goes for sexy clothing, costumes, and our personal style. Essentially, dress the way you want to feel.

When I put on clothes that look dark, gloomy and elegant, I feel like I’m that powerful and mysterious outsider that I associate with my experience of goth culture.

From a research perspective, there are at least three ways your appearance can impact how you feel about yourself and your experiences. From a human perspective, I see the role fashion and dress plays in our lives daily. It is obvious that the reason I put on my mustard sheath dress for interviews is because I know the psychology of the color and association with the cut will have a positive impact on how I will be viewed and that gives me confidence. I recognize I don’t wear it from then on because it doesn’t fit my self-concept, for example.

Speaking of self-concept, I just want to touch on dress and the transgender community. Gender affirmation is also a powerful factor of wellness influenced and it can be greatly influenced by dress. It’s great to feel good in what you’re wearing but it’s even greater to feel like yourself in what you are wearing. To all the folks out there working to feel affirmed and complete as the gender they identify with, I see you and I support you in being yourself. Remember: It Gets Better, so hold on to your Pride.

Works Cited

Gurney, Daniel J., et al. “Dressing up Posture: The Interactive Effects of Posture and Clothing on Competency Judgements.” British Journal of Psychology, vol. 108, no. 2, 6 July 2016, pp. 436–451. ResearchGate, doi:10.1111/bjop.12209.

“It Gets Better.” It Gets Better, itgetsbetter.org/.

Pine, Karen J. Mind What You Wear: The Psychology of Fashion. Amazon Singles, 2014.

“PRIDE.com.” Gay Pride - LGBT & Queer Voices, www.pride.com/.

Slepian, Michael L., et al. “The Cognitive Consequences of Formal Clothing.” Social Psychological and Personality Science, vol. 6, no. 6, 2015, pp. 661–668. ResearchGate, doi:10.1177/1948550615579462.

Fleming, Andrew, director. The Craft. Columbia Pictures, 1996.

“When Clothing Style Influences Cognitive Style.” Association for Psychological Science, 8 May 2015, www.psychologicalscience.org/news/minds-business/when-clothing-style-influences-cognitive-style.html#.WTmBucaZNBw.

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The First Step

Ready To Move Forward? Okay, Take A Giant Step Back.

Starting the Mental Wellness Journey

That’s right, take a big ‘ol step back.

Step back and take a look at yourself. Look at a month ago, a year ago, 10 years ago… The person here with you now is comprised of experiences and missed opportunities, likes and aversions, successes and letdowns, current and former…this is where the secret to advancing lies.

As The Wiseman says, “sometimes the way forward is the way back” (Henson 1986).

What To Look For

The past is full of valuable information that we can utilize. It is here you can start developing a foundation based on what is already known. Each one of us is the expert on ourselves if we’re willing to recognize it.

Going back as far as I can, I remember how much I enjoyed walking through cemeteries since I was a small child. Whenever my family would visit my great grandmother, my aunt and I would walk a couple blocks down to the nearby cemetery. There, we would enjoy a unique quiet that only seems to settle over graveyards while reading off names and dates; remembering those lost that we didn’t get a chance to know in life. Is this a clue for moving forward?

When you look to the past to consider the following:

What Has Worked: Change and growth is difficult. You will likely be challenged by it. To protect your progress and continue to grow it’s helpful to be armed with coping skills. Coping skills, in a nutshell, are the things we do that help us tolerate hard times and support wellness during calm times. When practiced habitually, coping skills can even act as a buffer when stressors arise.

For a list of coping skills, check out some of the great links listed at the end of the article. 

• If you’ve lost them, they can be found.  It happens! We get busy and put off our daily/weekly/monthly self-care activities one by one until they go missing. Before you know it you haven’t seen your therapist in two months, picked up your guitar in four months, or been to the gym in six months! 
• Ask yourself if any of the positive actions you used to take to reduce stress or to enjoy life have fallen off. You may not notice that you have coping skills until you look back and recognize them for what they are.

• Take it further. Skills from the past may not work the same in the present. Perhaps due to growth, changing interests, or overbearing symptoms. The old skills, however, can be the key to unlocking new potential for you. Take the skill you know and find a way to amplify it.
• An example: Perhaps you used to love singing but at this time your symptoms are overpowering your desire to enjoy it. A solution may be joining a choir or trying out for a local musical theater show. Being part a social effort around singing would provide structure and direction as well as contact with others who might become new supports.
• If the social effort is not right for you or too much too soon, creating goals for yourself could be a way of providing structure. Try setting aside time every day to sing, plan to learn a new piece of music every week, or try out a singing app that provides a system with goals and prizes.

Taking all of these into consideration thus far, I recognize I haven’t been to a cemetery in a long time. It’s been a couple years now. At the time I’m writing this, the weather is warming and the sun is shining. It’s a good time to go for a walk where I know I’ll find calm and peace. I think I’ll take it just a bit further and make plans to visit the cemeteries I’ve seen from a distance on my regular travels but have never visited.

Often, we also have coping skills that may have once worked…until they didn’t. That’s because they weren’t really working in the first place.

What Has Not Worked: To cope effectively, you have to be aware of what does not work. It’s obvious that if you do not enjoy playing sports that basketball will likely not be effective as a coping skill. Truly unhealthy coping skills are less apparent than that, though, because they have served a purpose before. The difference between a healthy skill and an unhealthy one is that the unhealthy ones come with harmful consequences and are not sustainable.

A stand out example would be substance abuse. This is common due to the fast-acting nature of many substances that can be abused. Any “positive” effects are temporary and carry great risk for run-ins with the law, health problems, overdose, addiction, and an increase of uncomfortable mental and physical symptoms.

Other harmful ways to cope can include overworking, emotional eating, restricting food below recommended daily nutritional value, self-harm, bottling emotions, and aggression. All of these unhealthy coping skills are built on avoidance. Avoidance does not make the problem go away; it gives it a place to stay and room to grow.

For me, anger is both an unhealthy coping mechanism and a warning sign. I get my frustrations out, sure, but only in ways that can hurt me like yelling at loved ones who only want to help. I know I’m not using my coping skills for self-care when irritability rises and I become more snappy and unpleasant.

What Has Been Recommended: Maybe Aunt Sofia suggested yoga after you told her about anxiety making it hard to concentrate. Perhaps your general practitioner recommended small meals every few hours to build up your appetite when you found it hard to eat. Reading this also reminds you of the time you read a self-help book and it proposed using labels for organization to reduce misplacing important items like keys or your wallet.

There are a variety of reasons not to try common, healthy interventions. Whatever it was at the time, you weren’t ready for the suggestion but reasons don’t necessarily have to be constant. Circumstance and viewpoints change over time.  Check in with yourself where you are now and see if any of those proposals are possible (and of course, make sure they’re healthy).

The old me, prior to intensive schooling to become a therapist, was quite resistant to things like yoga, meditation, and mindfulness. Now, I’ve found myself enjoying yoga that incorporates mindfulness principals and see the benefits. I’m still not at a place to use mindfulness or meditation outside of the occasional yoga class (more out of unwillingness to put it in my schedule that skepticism now), but I know I’m moving in that direction.

How To Use It

You’ve looked back and have your head full of great ideas and insight. Now what?

Acknowledge that this is a starting point. There is work ahead to turn what you’ve learned into a practice. There are three typical reactions to this;

1.  Try to fit everything in all at one time!
2. Become overwhelmed and not use any of it.
3. Pick one focus and work on that, moving on to the next once the first has been addressed.

If you lean towards the first reaction you may be at risk of pushing yourself further than you can go and burning out. Starting kickboxing, re-organizing and labeling the whole house, and introducing a new bedtime routine all at once sounds exhausting and will probably feel exhausting.

The second reaction is often a result of expecting that you’ll have to do it all at once and predicting your failure before you even begin. If it seems like too many things, acknowledge that it is. Doing just one is better than none and it gets you started.

I recommend number three. Having an initial focus allows for build-up and gradual change. It may also help to isolate each addition to your wellness lifestyle. If each skill is staggered into your routine, you can better detect if they’re helping or hurting. You can figure out the starting point by trying out some of the following:

Write It Down: Taking this action gets the ideas out of your mind and into reality. Besides just making these ideas real, having them written frees up your mind. You can always go back to the list for what comes next. Because the point is for it to be a list, I’ll contradict myself by saying that it doesn’t actually have to be written. If you prefer keeping your notes and thoughts digitally on a cell phone or other device, do so. For some, audio is a better way to stay organized and remember. If that’s you, record it with a basic recorder or with a recording app.

Organize It: Once the list is made, you get to decide if and how you want to organize the information. You could start at ranking from; least challenging to most challenging; most expensive to least expensive (monetarily, physically, emotionally); or realistic to unlikely. Consider what you need to make sense of it all. You know you best, so do what works for you.

Set Up Your Success: Now comes the follow through. How will you enact these wellness strategies until you’ve developed a habit? This takes some looking in the past as well. Is there a time you were able to stick to something and follow through? What helped? What didn’t? Would you do it differently? If so, how.

• You may do well with a planner and a detailed schedule. Motivating sticky notes or dry erase board messages often provide encouragement directly from the self. Accountability from a trusted other can be helpful in the form of direct reminders, to a buddy system, to a shared calendar for checks and balances, and the list goes on. Remember to consider if what you choose is sustainable and not harmful. Feedback from trusted and supportive others can be helpful in this area.

My mom, noticing a number of families and friends in our lives have some sort of travel goals, asked me what I thought we could do together. I took the opportunity to share my desire to start visiting cemeteries. She was on board immediately. It was at this point I found out that my great mommom and a number of other family members also had an interest and affinity for graveyard visits. We might all be a little weird but we are not alone in it!

Most of all, if you take anything away from this, remember you’re making your efforts for you. You are important enough. You are motivated enough. You are enough.

Works Cited

Henson, Jim, director. Labyrinth. Henson Associates, Inc., Lucasfilm Ltd., 1986.

Coping Skill Resources

https://positivepsychologyprogram.com/coping-skills-worksheets/

https://www.verywellmind.com/forty-healthy-coping-skills-4586742

https://www.therapistaid.com/therapy-worksheet/healthy-unhealthy-coping-strategies

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