Training Your Self-Love Muscle through Exercise
Many people start exercising or personal training regularly hoping for some kind of transformation. You might be working out to lose weight, build muscle, or even become more disciplined. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with those goals. They’re great motivators and can inspire real change in your lifestyle.
However, when you exercise to change yourself, it becomes harder to establish healthy habits. You might burn out quickly, or cut back on regular exercise when you reach your transformation goals.
Instead, consider dissecting your motivations for exercising. If you approach your desire to work out as an act of self-love, it can change the way you think about physical activity. Instead of having physical goals in mind, exercise can be a form of self-care.
Not sure how to exercise with the desire to treat your mind and body well? Let’s cover a few tips that can help you shift your perspective on physical activity.
The Mental and Physical Health Connection
Most people have a basic understanding of the physical benefits of exercise. It’s great for losing weight, improving stamina, and even reducing your risk of developing certain illnesses. However, exercise can also be extremely beneficial for your mental health. Some of those benefits include
Reduced anxiety
Reduced depression
Improved mood
Greater self-esteem
Greater cognitive function
Your mental state can also have an impact on your physical health. The more you choose to take care of both, the better you’ll feel. For example, more studies are showing a strong link between mental health and gut health. Certain problems in your GI tract could be made worse by anxiety. By exercising with self-love in mind, you can reduce the effects of anxiety, and improve your physical well-being.
Exercise as Self-Care
Self-care has become a popular term in recent years, but many people have misconceptions as to what it actually is. Self-care doesn’t have to be something extravagant. Eating healthily, meditating, practicing mindfulness, and journaling are all effective forms of self-care you can do every day.
Exercising is another great option when you look at it from the right perspective.
Unfortunately, it can be difficult to break down both societal expectations and stereotypes, and personal beliefs about exercising. For so long, people have looked at working out as a form of “punishment,” or something you have to do if you want to see physical changes in your body. Instead, choose to view it as an act of self-love. You can start to change your perspective by trying things like
Taking a few days off
Not comparing yourself to others
Letting go of expectations
Switching up your routine
Surrounding yourself with a positive support system
Every time you hit the gym or step outside for a run, ask yourself why you’re exercising. Are you doing it to look better or feel better? Or, are you doing it as an act of self-care. When you start to change the way you see physical activity, it will become more enjoyable and feel more like a reward, rather than a punishment. It will also help you to stay body positive throughout the year, rather than focusing on how you “need” to exercise to change the way you look.
Prepare for the Gym
If you’re ready to start exercising with self-love in mind, it’s important to know how to prepare yourself every time you’re ready to hit the gym.
It’s easy to make excuses that can hold you back. Maybe you haven’t worked out in a while. Maybe you’re used to exercising strictly to lose weight. You might even have glasses that make it hard to use certain machines or complete some activities. You can let go of those excuses when you start to look at exercise as a way to take care of your mind and body.
Prepare yourself by deciding what you want to do when you’re at the gym. If there are certain machines you want to avoid, that’s okay! If you’re not ready to sign up for a class, that’s also okay! Have the right gear with you to help you feel comfortable and prepared, including a gym bag, towel, something to drink, and anything else you might need to keep your body safe. It can even help to have a specific music playlist geared up on your phone, so you can transport yourself to somewhere both relaxing and motivating while you’re working out.
It’s unfortunate that so many gyms here in Portland and across the country, as well as fitness influencers, have stressed the importance of exercise from a physical standpoint without focusing on self-love. We live in an image and performance-based culture, and that likely won’t change any time soon. However, by stripping those short-term goals from your mind and looking at exercise as something rewarding and loving, you’ll enjoy it more than ever. More importantly, you’ll create life-long healthy habits that are easy to stick to, and you’ll look forward to your daily workouts, rather than dreading them.