No Sweat: How the Simple Science of Motivation Can Bring You a Lifetime of Fitness by Michelle Segar

Author:Michelle Segar [Segar, Michelle]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780814434864
Publisher: AMACOM
Published: 2015-06-10T05:00:00+00:00

Seeing Through the “I Don’t Have Time” Smoke Screen

Individuals who are regularly active don’t literally have more time, but they somehow make it work. Self-care is a high priority for them, and they make sure to schedule time for it. They make it a priority despite time constraints because they know that their daily quality of life and performance is enhanced when they are physically active—they simply enjoy it, or they feel that it benefits them in real ways, such as reducing their stress or helping them focus. When they’re not active, they feel it. They’re sluggish, tense, and unhappy.

My husband, Jeff, is a perfect example of this. He gets up every day around 5 a.m. to exercise in our basement on a stationary bike and lift weights. Because asking about motivation is my job (and because this is a time when I am fast asleep), I did just that. At first he told me it was because he wanted to “be healthy”—his late father had a history of heart disease, which he wants to avoid. I know that many people automatically answer “to be healthy” because they haven’t really given it much thought and that so clearly seems the obvious answer. So I pushed further. “Okay, but is being healthy your motivator for getting up every morning when your alarm rings and you’ve gotten only about six hours of sleep?” (I’m allowed to say this as his wife.)

“No,” he said. “It’s because if I don’t exercise, I feel like crap.” Again, as his wife, I know this to be true.

He and I follow the gender divide found by research when it comes to the effects of not sleeping: He can get by on less sleep, while for me, sleep is my number one nutrient. If I don’t get enough sleep, I feel awful. For me, sleep provides energy for the most important parts of my life, the parts that reflect who I am and what I care most about. I think of my self-care as “sustain-ergy”—a daily energizer that fuels what matters most. So sleep is the foundation of my self-care hierarchy, while exercise is Jeff’s. See our distinct self-care hierarchies in Figure 7-1.

Despite our differing self-care hierarchies, my husband and I have this in common: We deeply understand that our foundational self-care behavior makes or breaks our day. And we do everything we can to help each other meet our respective daily self-care needs.

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