Be kind to yourself, we are wired to avoid exercise
Q In my gut I know I must exercise but I just can’t bring myself to commit to anything. Please help. A We all “know it in our gut”, all the time. Problem is, we never listen to our gut. How many times have you heard someone say:
“I had a bad feeling about it but did it anyway”?
We are headed into election season. We read every day that the ANC will dip as low as 40%, or even lower. Yet, if we are honest with ourselves, we all know in our gut that the ANC is retaining power — either on its own, or with the help of one or two small, fringe parties.
You see, sometimes your gut tells you the truth, not what you necessarily want to hear. However, this extends well beyond the realm of crystals, incense and a few fairy chants. Our guts really are deeply wired to our brains.
Harvard Medical School’s publishing arm, Harvard Health Publishing, wrote an article about the gut-brain connection. It wrote: “Have you ever had a
‘ gut-wrenching’ experience? Do certain situations make you ‘ feel nauseous ’? Have you ever felt
‘ butterflies ’ in your stomach? We use these expressions for a reason. The gastrointestinal tract is sensitive to emotion. Anger, anxiety, sadness, elation — all of these feelings (and others) can trigger symptoms in the gut.”
This is not a one-way relationship. It’s not just a case of imagining an ANC-EFF coalition and suffering from an involuntary bowel incident like John Steenhuisen. Your gut can also inform your brain.
GOES BOTH WAYS
“This connection goes both ways. A troubled intestine can send signals to the brain, just as a troubled brain can send signals to the gut. Therefore, a person’s stomach or intestinal distress can be the cause or the product of anxiety, stress, or depression. That’s because the brain and the gastrointestinal system are intimately connected.” You ’ d be wise to listen to your gut and how you feel, and to take care of your gut to protect your brain.
Now that you’re unlikely to ever use the phrase “I know it in my gut” again, let’s move to your inability to disembark from the couch.
Time magazine recently published an article on research we have discussed here before, albeit in a different context. We are evolutionarily wired to resist unnecessary exercise.
Our distant ancestors spent a great deal of time chasing down antelope, climbing trees, smacking stones together in the hope of finding a spark. They weren’t out on a 45-minute jog to burn calories — doing something like that would have been outrageously stupid. Because of the sheer amount of exercise that ancient life necessitated, and because of the insecurity of food supply, our brains evolved to make us seek rest as much as possible. It was a way to preserve calories for when they were really needed.
The problem is in 2024 we use escalators and cars, and our protein comes from Food Lover ’ s Market and not the untamed savannah. Yet, instinctively, we still seek out every possible way to be sedentary.
How, then, do we overcome this biological programme? The Time article quotes Daniel Lieberman, a human evolutionary biologist and author of Exercised: Why Something we Never Evolved to Do is Healthy and Rewarding.
The article says: “A counterintuitive way to build confidence, Lieberman adds, is to simply recognise the ways your brain sets you up to fail.
“When people struggle to exercise, they’re told they’re lazy or there’s something wrong with them,” when in reality, people who exercise purely for fitness are the ones working against their natural instincts, Lieberman says. Replacing guilt and shame with self-compassion and an understanding of how the human brain works — can go a long way.”
The moral of the story is that your gut is right — you must exercise because of all the positive benefits, from health and longevity to improved mental health. However, instead of becoming anxious, which will trigger your gut even more, be forgiving. Accept that by starting to move you will be doing something that instinctively feels difficult.
However, the more you exercise, the more your confidence will grow, and when that happens no-one will be able to stop you.
THE MORE YOU EXERCISE, THE MORE YOUR CONFIDENCE WILL GROW, AND THEN NO-ONE WILL BE ABLE TO STOP YOU