In response to one of last week’s posts about pain, a friend asked about how to deal with the pain of getting out of bed and doing a morning workout, so that’s what I’m going to talk about today.
Let’s get the bad news out of the way: there is no one right answer to this question. Most likely it will take a fair amount of experimentation to find the solution that is right for each individual. The good news is that experiments can be undertaken in a spirit of fun, like: “I wonder what I’m going to get up to today with this?”
With that in mind, here are some questions to ask to guide our experiments:
Does the workout really have to be in the morning? For some of us, the answer is yes, because we have very full lives and that’s the only time we can get some time to ourselves. But if the comfy bed wins every single time, we might want to figure out if there is another time that works better for us, even if we have to get creative about it. Lunch time is a reasonable time to work out for some of us. Maybe it’s easier to say no to another episode of that really great show in the evening than it is to force ourselves out of the blankets in the morning.
Are we getting enough sleep? Health is a holistic thing. (I am allowed to use that word because I lived in Berkeley for 20 years.) Working out is only one part of our total health. If we are struggling to get up and work out, it might be because we are actually worn out. Committing to getting enough sleep might be a good first step toward achieving that morning workout.
Are we excited about what we get to do at the gym? (Or the pool, or the dance studio, or the ski slope, or whatever.) There is very little in the world that could induce me to get up early to run. I hate running. But tell me I get to ride my bike and I’m ready to go! Finding that perfect activity can mean trying a bunch of different stuff, but it is worth it. One caveat: sometimes we are going to have to do workouts we don’t love so much. Yoga people sometimes have to do cardio. Runners sometimes need to lift a weight or two. But if we can make more of our workouts ones we love to do, we often find it easier to deal with the ones that are just good for us rather than fun.
Do we have to do it alone? Friends and accountability partners can make all the difference in our ability to show up. Maybe I don’t really feel like lifting weights, but I do feel like seeing my buddy and chatting, and we might as well lift while we do that. It may take a while to find the right buddy. It’s frustrating when we want to work out with someone who keeps flaking on us. This is a place where classes come in handy: it is unlikely that the entire class is going to flake out, so we will have somebody to play with!
Why are we doing this, anyway? I know it’s not easy to face existential questions first thing in the morning, so maybe we figure this out at some time of day when our brains are really working well. Then we remind ourselves about the reasons we want to work out when we’re debating the relative merits of staying under the blankets and putting on our tennies. We have to find real reasons, even if they’re embarrassing. Our fake-virtuous resolve to treat our body like a temple is not going to win over the really comfy pillow, but our honest desire to rock the bikini on the beach might do it. (One of my personal reasons is that I always feel better afterward. Always.) It can be tempting to answer the why questions with intellect alone: it’s good for us, we don’t want to die, we got a lecture from the doctor, blah blah blah. What really gets us out of bed is emotion: I want to be strong, I want to feel good, I want better sex, I want the joy of playing with my kids or grandkids, I feel light when I ride my bike.
I’m sure these are not all the possible questions, but they should give us a place to start.
Go play.
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