How to Make Exercise A Daily Habit

How To Make Exer­cise a Dai­ly Habit? You want to exer­cise every day. You enjoy it, and you know how ben­e­fi­cial it is to your phys­i­cal, men­tal, and emo­tion­al well-being, but some­times it’s hard! You feel unmo­ti­vat­ed, you’re super busy, you’re too tired, or you just can’t face a cold and rainy morn­ing when you have a per­fect­ly warm bed. Moti­va­tion is dif­fi­cult, but if you cre­ate a rou­tine, invite friends, keep work­outs fun and var­ied, reward your­self, you will soon look and feel great.

- Consult An Expert

Seek med­ical advice before start­ing any health plan. A med­ical expert can advise you on the most effec­tive and safest work­out rou­tine and advise you on injury pre­ven­tion or recovery. Many of us suf­fer some form of nig­gling injury or sore­ness after pro­longed exer­cise, and a lot of us ignore the pain and keep on exer­cis­ing. This deter­mi­na­tion and dis­ci­pline are admirable, but a small nig­gle can turn into a seri­ous injury if not treated.

- Routine

Find a rou­tine and stick to it. Fight for it and defend it. Wake up at the same time every day, even if you’re tired. Find a time to exer­cise which suits your per­son­al­i­ty, work com­mit­ments and oth­er lifestyle fac­tors, and try to work out at the same time every day. Are you a morn­ing per­son who prefers to watch the sun break through the clouds and be done before break­fast? Do you pre­fer to sweat dur­ing twi­light and dusk? Whichev­er defines you, find that time and stick to it. Many peo­ple say that exer­cis­ing in the morn­ing is prefer­able because then the work­out is done, and no oth­er com­mit­ments can get in their way. They also find it hard to moti­vate them­selves to get off the couch after a hard day at work.

- Set an Alarm…or Two!

Get up. Get up! But I’m so tired; it’s so cold out­side; I’m still aching from yes­ter­day’s session…Get up any­way. Stick to your rou­tine and rise with your alarm. If that’s a chal­lenge for you, set two alarms and put at least one out of arm’s reach so you have to get out of bed to turn it off. It is hard, I know.….Ok, maybe let your­self sleep in one day a week!

- Don’t Blame it on the Rain

Hor­ri­ble weath­er can put any­one off exer­cis­ing. The cold, the heat, the rain or sleet…all of them make work­ing out unpleas­ant. Ignore the weath­er and dis­ci­pline your­self to exercise. Put on the right clothes for the cli­mate, and get out there. If the weath­er is too severe to exer­cise out­side, do an alter­na­tive work­out indoors. The say­ing goes: If you play in the rain, you train in the rain …and the truth is that the best ath­letes and teams ignore bad weath­er and get their train­ing done. You might not be an elite ath­lete, but you can adapt your mind­set and achieve great results.

- Get Social

Drag­ging your­self to the gym, the track, the pool or the park can be hard. Push­ing your­self to work out day after day on your own is hard — after all, that’s why only one per­son wins the gold medal. So, to take some pres­sure off your­self and find some extra moti­va­tion, work out with a bud­dy or a group. Find a friend, fam­i­ly mem­ber or neigh­bour who likes to keep fit, and invite them to join you. That way, when you’re feel­ing lazy, they will moti­vate you to get active, and when they can’t be both­ered, you can encour­age (or force) them to get off the couch. Plus, work­ing out in groups can be more fun. If you can’t actu­al­ly get out­side to exer­cise for what­ev­er rea­son, and can’t meet your work­out bud­dy in per­son, get online. Hook up a device, switch on a mes­sag­ing plat­form and do your rou­tine at the same time. Com­mu­ni­ca­tion tech­nol­o­gy has improved so much these days that an online group work­out can almost feel like the real thing. Many online class­es are also offered, so you can join a group even if you don’t know anyone.

- Reward Yourself

Treat your­self from time to time. When you’ve forced your­self to exer­cise for many con­sec­u­tive days, weeks or months, give your­self a present in return for the hard work. Maybe even promise your­self this reward before you start a peri­od of exer­cise. Bribery works with kids, so it can also work with adults!

- Recovery

We’ve offered you advice on how to work out every day, but here we tell you to take a break. Con­fus­ing? Per­haps. But we’re talk­ing about recov­ery – not lazi­ness. Recov­ery is a delib­er­ate break from exercise. It is planned and designed to help your body recov­er from exer­cise. Vig­or­ous exer­cise, the kind that gets you fit, attacks the cells in your body so that they even­tu­al­ly become stronger. There­fore, a planned recov­ery is impor­tant as it allows your body to recover. Recov­ery helps your body restore its ener­gy and boost the immune sys­tem, and to keep you healthy. Active or passive? Basi­cal­ly, an active recov­ery involves exer­cis­ing to repair the body, usu­al­ly a low­er quan­ti­ty or inten­si­ty than a nor­mal rou­tine. Pas­sive recov­ery pret­ty much means doing noth­ing – resting. Not sure how to plan your recov­ery? This is anoth­er good time to get advice from an expert.

- Fun

Keep your exer­cise fun. Find a phys­i­cal activ­i­ty that you enjoy, and try to do a lot of this. Do you love danc­ing? Then hit the dance floor! Do you pre­fer team sports and com­pe­ti­tion? Then sign up for a team. Search for fit­ness and fun activ­i­ties, and you won’t even real­ize you’re work­ing out.

- Variety

Mix it up. Do a dif­fer­ent work­out every now and then or every day if you need to. Work on dif­fer­ent mus­cle groups or body sys­tems on dif­fer­ent days. You might have heard gym users say, “Today is legs day” or “Today is arms day.” They’re basi­cal­ly say­ing that they are work­ing on that par­tic­u­lar mus­cle group on that day and plan to alter­nate their work­outs. They do this not just to keep it fresh but also to allow par­tic­u­lar mus­cle groups or parts of the body to recover.

- Get Out and About

If you com­mon­ly exer­cise at the gym, try for a scene change and take your work­out to the woods, the park, the beach, or anoth­er loca­tion. It’s even bet­ter if you can find some­where beau­ti­ful, peace­ful or with great views. Take a hike to a stun­ning look­out, and even take a pic­nic with you. Make your way to the beach, do your work­out on the sand if pos­si­ble, or go for a frol­ic in the waves. You’ll be amazed at how refresh­ing a dip in the ocean can be, espe­cial­ly in cold water. Of course, not every­one lives near the beach, so search for a park, a riv­er or a lake and find a way to do some exer­cise sur­round­ed by nature.

- Try Something New

If you’ve nev­er been rock climb­ing, done spin class­es, tried Yoga or done water run­ning, give it a go. The act of try­ing some­thing dif­fer­ent will acti­vate dif­fer­ent sys­tems in your body and also keep your mind alert. If you don’t like the new rou­tine or activ­i­ty, cross it off the list – at least you tried. To find more work­out options, hop online – so many types of exer­cise exist these days.

- Diet and Sleep

Eat well and sleep well. A healthy diet will give your body the nutri­ents it needs to keep exer­cis­ing, and eight hours of qual­i­ty sleep will pro­vide you with the ener­gy to get up and get mov­ing in the morning. We all have a basic idea of what foods are ‘healthy’ and ‘unhealthy,’ but it helps to con­sult a dieti­cian or an expert for more detailed diet advice. A change to your diet might even improve your per­son­al bests, hurl you up the hill faster or have you over­tak­ing your friends on the track.

Last But Not Least

Dai­ly exer­cise is so good for you. It keeps your phys­i­cal health at an opti­mal lev­el, improves brain func­tion, and improves men­tal health – but exer­cis­ing every day can be hard. To keep your dai­ly work­out, set your­self a rou­tine, stick to it, set real­is­tic goals, invite friends or fam­i­ly to join you and inject vari­ety and fun into your workouts. Reward your­self reg­u­lar­ly for the hard work you’ve done and sought expert med­ical advice before and dur­ing a new phase of your work­out. If you can fol­low this sim­ple advice and dis­ci­pline your­self to do reg­u­lar exer­cise, you will soon have more ener­gy, a more pos­i­tive out­look on life, a health­i­er body and improved cog­ni­tive function. Bet­ter still, you are like­ly to live longer and give your­self more oppor­tu­ni­ties to enjoy life sur­round­ed by those you care about most. So, get up, get out there and get active!