Those who get more exercise have higher levels of excitement and enthusiasm than people who are sedentary; this is based on a recent report by researchers at Penn State. The feelings are more prevalent on higher activity days.
David Conroy, a kinesiology professor at Penn State said, “You don’t have to be the fittest person who is exercising every day to receive the feel-good benefits of exercise,”. “It’s a matter of taking it one day at a time, of trying to get your activity in, and then there’s this feel-good reward afterwards.”
The prof also added that it’s frequently hard for us to commit fitness program for the simple reason that we usually will set long-term goals rather than short-term goals. And when there are slow results people will of course get discouraged and quit.
“When people set New Year’s resolutions, they set them up to include the entire upcoming year, but that can be really overwhelming,” said Conroy. “Taking it one day at a time and savoring that feel-good effect at the end of the day might be one step to break it down and get those daily rewards for activity. Doing this could help people be a little more encouraged to stay active and keep up the program they started.”
The study was done with 190 university students keeping journals, day by day, of their lives; writing about their fitness activities including sleep quality as well as psychological well being. The students recorded just the periods of fitness activity that happened for a minimum of 15 minutes.The research subjects turned in their journal each day for 8 days. The results are published in this month’s issue of Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology.
The researchers found that the people who are more active walk around feeling better throughout the day than sedentary. And even better, an energetic workout can supercharge your feelings of well-being for much longer than the workout itself lasts.
It doesn’t take a scientist to know that a workout can make you feel great. Arnold Schwarzenegger remarked in the 1977 documentary “Pumping Iron” that working out felt better than sex. I wouldn’t go quite that far but I would bet that people have known about the effects of intense exercise for as long as there have been people.
Doing 3 quick sets of high rep squats can be a great way to wake yourself up in the AM. Beats coffee. Later.
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