FOR A BETTER AND MORE ENJOYABLE WORKOUT, TRY TO GET YOUR MIND INVOLVED PART 1.

Now shall I walk,

Or shall I ride?

“Ride” Pleasure said,

“Walk” Joy replied.  – by W.H. Davies

Right at the onset, I would like to state that I am neither a neuroscientist nor an exercise phycologist. My opinions, as I see them, come from my individual experiences, my reading of books, articles, and social media posts.

Abundant scientific evidence tells us that exercise is the only “fountain of youth” that we have that primes and helps to maintain our physical and mental health for our lifetime.

Yet many of us either ignore these facts or try to find excuses not to exercise, usually saying Oh I have no time to exercise or, exercise is waste of my time.

On the other hand, we all know, deep down, that if we really like or love something, we always find time to do it, repeatedly and with intense pleasure.

Then it becomes obvious that to exercise daily, first we must teach ourselves how to love exercise?

We cannot love anything if we know nothing about it. So, the first thing to do is to learn as much as possible about every aspect of exercise. Knowledge about things gives meaning, acquaintance, liking and repetition to things. Eventually they become lovable habits. Lovable habits are hardwired in the brain by becoming a part of reward center of the brain. That is how mental aspects of things we love do develop. Reward centers of our brain make us to repeat things we love by dopamine over production and enjoyment.

Even though types of exercises people do vary depending on their preferences, habits and likes, I believe humans are created and it is more physiological for us to walk on two legs and in an upright position. That is why walking/ hiking is the most popular exercise option in the world. I don’t mean to be disrespectful to runners but running is more physiological for four legged creators.

A casual walk in a park is not exercise. A walk must be brisk enough to increase the heart rate, breathing rate and make you perspire, and lasts at least half an hour to be beneficial.

So, let us start to learn some basic knowledge about exercise, about its mental and physical aspects, and about its benefits to our mental and physical health.

Mental aspects of anything start in our brain. Let us learn some more about our brain. Our brain is the most complex, sophisticated, and mysterious neuro-anatomical organ there is. It is composed of about eighty-six billion specific nerve cells called neurons. Each neuron works like a nano-computer. And every neuron is connected to other neurons with 100 billion specific synaptic connections for performance of specific brain functions.

Our neuroanatomical brain creates non-anatomical, mysterious, and poorly understood essences like mind, consciousness, and higher mental faculties like thinking, learning, memory, decision making and behaving.

Our brain is also “commander-in-chief” for every organ in our body and connected to them with a dense web of nerve fibers and communicate with them to make sure that each organ works properly with a required pace, under any circumstances, for 24/7 to sustain our life. The language of communication is neuro-molecular, hormonal, and electrical potential.

Our bodily organs and our microbiome population also communicate back with our brain for their needs. All these brain activities and functions are energy dependent and require energy consumption. Neuroscientists estimate that the brain consumes about 20 % of the body’ energy to function. The minimum energy requirement for our body is about two thousand calories per day.

Our brain is also very smart. It knows how to conserve energy by creating two different and independent working systems: System1, and System 2.

System 1 is a fast, energy efficient, subconscious automatic reflex system that is dedicated to the performance of routine daily tasks which require minimal or no thinking.

System 2 is slow, deliberate, energy dependent, needs time for thinking and decision making, and uses higher mental faculties. It does not interfere with system 1’s work unless its help is asked. When system 2 is at work, automatic reflex activities stop.

So, if we want to have a mora enjoyable exercise, we must ask our commander-in-chief brain and mind consciously to get involved in our exercise.

In the second- and third part of this article, we shall discuss exercise physiology and mindfulness exercise in short summaries.