Not feeling motivated to exercise even though you know you should? You’re probably lacking mindfulness, according to a recent study published in Frontiers in Sports and Active Living.
With just only 23% of Americans getting the required daily exercise amount, researchers from NYU set out in this study to examine the relationship between mindfulness, motivation, and physical activity.
The research team recruited 205 healthy men and women between the ages of 25 to 59 years from from Austin, TX and New York, NY. Subjects self-reported their exercise levels based on duration and frequency as well as answered questionnaires that assessed mindfulness and exercise motivation.
In analysis, researchers found that higher level of mindfulness had higher motivation to exercise and were also less likely to experience negative psychological distress associated with exercise. Furthermore, people who had high levels of mindfulness were less motivated by external factors to exercise such as appearance, social validation, or competition; instead higher levels of mindfulness was associated with internal motivation factors such as well-being and being better than they were yesterday. Mindfulness was also less associated with traits of exercise addiction.
“We found that heightened mindfulness is associated with increased levels of exercise motivation,” author, Julia Basso told PsyPost. “Additionally, we found that individuals with high levels of mindfulness are less likely to engage with exercise because of an internal sense or pressure/guilt or an external sense of reward or punishment. Finally, heightened levels of mindfulness were associated with lower levels of exercise addiction or dependence.”
Perhaps one of the biggest cause of lacking motivation to exercise is our lack of mindfulness practices and abundance of mindlessness from social media, lazy use of artificial intelligence, increase legalization of mind numbing drugs, fast rewards, and endless amounts of streaming services. Turnoff these mindless distractions and start putting your brain power to more rewarding activities such as exercise.
S Lynn et al. Dispositional mindfulness and its relationship to exercise motivation and experience. Frontiers in Sports and Active Living. 2023. https://doi.org/10.3389/fspor.2022.934657
