![\"Temptation](\"https:\/\/www.yogiapproved.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/TemptationBundling_Feature-1-300x182.jpg\")
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Unless you\u2019re one of a very fortunate few, you might not exactly love<\/em> exercising.<\/strong> For many of us, it\u2019s hard to figure out how to really enjoy<\/em> exercise.<\/p>\n But it\u2019s hard to read a single wellness article these days without seeing some statistic about how helpful exercise is. So you\u2019re likely very aware of the fact that you should<\/em> be exercising, but you\u2019d simply rather fill your time doing something else instead.<\/p>\n The good news is, this doesn\u2019t mean you\u2019re being lazy!<\/p>\n Feeling Uninspired? This 30-Second Hack Is Guaranteed to Motivate You to Exercise<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n If you consider what would be good for us throughout our evolutionary history, it makes sense that until very recently, we didn\u2019t have enough calories to spare on any exercise beyond the physical energy we needed to exert in order to survive. There\u2019s selection pressure against what our brains deem to be unnecessary exercise. When calories are scarce (like they were for the majority of our evolutionary history), anyone burning additional body mass was at a disadvantage.<\/p>\n Cave-age folks who loved running for fun would spend unnecessary calories, making them less likely to survive and pass on their genes to the next generation.<\/p>\n Daniel Lieberman, an evolutionary biologist from Harvard, notes<\/a> that some hunter-gatherers had diets of only 2,200 calories per day. \u201cWhen your energy intake is that low, you can\u2019t afford to go for a jog just for fun,\u201d he told Slate<\/a>.<\/p>\n The upshot is that it\u2019s perfectly normal to hate running!<\/p>\n Even though running is good for us, even though we know exercise makes us healthier, our brains have a hard time fully buying into that. \u00a0 The strategy is called \u201ctemptation bundling,\u201d as coined<\/a> by University of Pennsylvania researcher Katherine Milkman in a 2014 study.<\/p>\n The idea is simple. You pick a \u201cwant\u201d behavior (something with instant gratification) and pair it with a \u201cshould\u201d behavior (an unattractive activity with long-term benefits) and habitually reinforce a relationship whereby you can only do the first when you do the second.<\/p>\n By rewarding a delayed gratification activity such as going to the gym, healthy eating, or even doing taxes, with an immediate gratification \u201cguilty pleasure,\u201d which can be binge-watching a Netflix show or a funny podcast, our brains learn to associate the immediate pleasure with the behavior we should be doing.<\/p>\n How to Train Your Brain to CRAVE Healthy Food<\/a><\/em> \u00a0<\/p>\n The first thing you should do is pick your goals and set up specific metrics to make sure that as you go, the strategy is actually working for you.<\/p>\n You can pick any delayed gratification habit, but many of my clients focus on exercise as it has such tremendous and fast-acting health benefits.<\/p>\n First, pick your exercise and come up with a goal. For example, cross training three times per week for five weeks. This will help you determine if this method actually works for you later on. I chose to aim to go for a 20-minute jog, four times per week for a month. Next, pick your temptation. The only rules for this are that it needs to provide instant gratification, and it needs to be something that you can reasonably restrict access to otherwise.<\/p>\n If I paired my workout with scrolling through Instagram, for example, but never limited my Instagram use otherwise, the pairing wouldn\u2019t work.<\/p>\n In my experience, the most successful pairings are with some kind of episodic media consumption, like a podcast or TV show. It\u2019s much easier to create a ritual you look forward to, and it\u2019s easier to have a discrete limit on when you consume it \u2013 you can easily stick to three episodes a week of New Girl<\/em>, for example. Third, do your trial period. The most important thing in this step is to consider it an active investigation, a work in progress.<\/p>\n Don\u2019t be angry or despair if you fail, because this isn\u2019t a success\/failure thing. You\u2019re just testing out a strategy to see if it works for you, judgement free.<\/p>\n If it doesn\u2019t work, that doesn\u2019t mean you messed up \u2013 it just means the strategy needs a bit more tweaking to work for your personal lifestyle and motivations. \u00a0 Finally, evaluate your results. If it works, great! Enjoy your love of exercise and all the benefits that come with it.<\/p>\n You can expand this to any aspect of your life. For example, you can learn to love filing taxes, but only when drinking a fancy beverage. Or maybe you can introduce a bathroom cleaning regimen while you watch your favorite YouTuber who only posts on Sundays.<\/p>\n If it doesn\u2019t quite work out, the critical thing is to not give up. Maybe find a more tempting temptation or get stricter about where you actually indulge in your temptation.<\/p>\n Try less time, or fewer reps per week. There are plenty of options to customize temptation bundling into a strategy that works for you \u2013 you just have to find the right combination.<\/p>\n How to Train Your Brain to Crave the Gym: It\u2019s Simpler Than You Think (And Totally Doable!)<\/a><\/em> Katherine Milkman\u2019s initial 2014 study<\/a> found that just by asking people to only listen to a gripping audiobook while they were at the gym, folks were more inclined to actually go to the gym.<\/p>\n Her follow-up study in 2020<\/a> discovered that even just by offering a free audiobook \u2013 not forcing people, not instructing them in how to structure their bundles \u2013 that simple motivation was enough to encourage people to go to the gym more.<\/p>\n If it\u2019s so effective without explicit instruction, what that means is that temptation bundling has very real, very fast-acting effects for people who choose to use this strategy with intent.<\/p>\n In her words, her studies \u201csupport the value of temptation bundling as a behavior change technique, and offer suggestive evidence of its use as a potentially scalable, low-cost intervention to promote behavior change for good.\u201d This strategy is cheap, it\u2019s easy, and it\u2019s effective in getting people to acquire better habits.<\/p>\n Ultimately, temptation bundling immediately rewards our brain for doing activities we normally don\u2019t enjoy doing, but that give us long-term benefits. All we ever needed was a push in the right direction!<\/p>\n The post This \u201cTemptation\u201d Hack Will Rewire Your Brain to Actually Enjoy Exercise<\/a> appeared first on YogiApproved\u2122<\/a>.<\/p>\n Unless you\u2019re one of a very fortunate few, you might not exactly love exercising. For many of us, it\u2019s hard to figure out how to really enjoy exercise. But it\u2019s hard to read a single wellness article these days without seeing some statistic about how helpful exercise is. So you\u2019re likely very aware of the Unless you\u2019re one of a very fortunate few, you might not exactly love exercising. For many of us, it\u2019s hard to figure out how to really enjoy exercise. But it\u2019s hard to read a single wellness article these days without seeing some statistic about how helpful exercise is. So you\u2019re likely very aware of the fact that you should be exercising, but you\u2019d simply rather fill your time doing something else instead. The good news is, this doesn\u2019t mean you\u2019re being lazy! Feeling Uninspired? This 30-Second Hack Is Guaranteed to Motivate You to Exercise If you consider what would be good for us throughout our evolutionary history, it makes sense that until very recently, we didn\u2019t have enough calories to spare on any exercise beyond the physical energy we needed to exert in order to survive. \u00a0 \u00a0 The Secret for How to Enjoy Exercise: Temptation Bundling There\u2019s selection pressure against what our brains deem to be unnecessary exercise. When calories are scarce (like they were for the majority of our evolutionary history), anyone burning additional body mass was at a disadvantage. Cave-age folks who loved running for fun would spend unnecessary calories, making them less likely to survive and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23303,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[91],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sayloveyoga.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23302"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sayloveyoga.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sayloveyoga.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sayloveyoga.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sayloveyoga.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23302"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/sayloveyoga.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23302\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sayloveyoga.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sayloveyoga.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sayloveyoga.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sayloveyoga.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\n\u00a0<\/p>\nThe Secret for How to Enjoy Exercise: Temptation Bundling<\/h2>\n
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\nBut there is a way to \u201chack\u201d your brain to learn how to enjoy exercise \u2013 to subvert the temptations and use them to reinforce the healthy habits you want to take on.<\/p>\n
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\n\u00a0<\/p>\nHere\u2019s How You Can Take Advantage of Temptation Bundling to Learn How to Enjoy Exercise in 4 Easy Steps:<\/h2>\n
1. Pick Your Goals<\/h3>\n
\n\u00a0<\/p>\n2. Pick Your Temptation<\/h3>\n
\n\u00a0<\/p>\n3. Run a Trial<\/h3>\n
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\n\u00a0<\/p>\n4. Evaluate<\/h3>\n
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\n\u00a0<\/p>\nHow Does Temptation Bundling Actually Work to Help You Learn How to Enjoy Exercise?<\/h2>\n
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\n\u00a0<\/p>\nUse Temptation Bundling to Learn How to Enjoy Exercise Once and for All!<\/h2>\n
\nThe post This \u201cTemptation\u201d Hack Will Rewire Your Brain to Actually Enjoy Exercise appeared first on YogiApproved\u2122.Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"