2546: How to Make Exercise a Daily Habit by Leo Babauta of Zen Habits on Habit Formation & Overall Wellness

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[00:00:34] and be sure to pick the one from Optimal Living Daily. This is Optimal Health Daily, Episode 2546,

[00:00:42] How To Make Exercise A Daily Habit by Leo Bouda of Zenhabits.net and I'm Dr. Neal Malik,

[00:00:48] your host and narrator. Hey there, happy middle of the week Wednesday and welcome back to

[00:00:53] Optimal Health Daily where I simply read to you from the best health and fitness blogs for free.

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[00:01:15] Now today is Wednesday and like I do every Wednesday, I like to share just a little

[00:01:20] bit of inspiration with you. So, with that, here we go. Quote,

[00:01:26] Not everything that is faced can be changed but nothing can be changed until it is faced.

[00:01:33] James Baldwin. Now a word about today's post before I read it to you,

[00:01:38] we're going to be talking about making exercise a daily habit and you may be asking,

[00:01:44] Dr. Neal, didn't you just talk about how exercising every day may not be a good idea?

[00:01:50] I sure did. But remember, the type of exercise matters, the intensity of that exercise matters,

[00:01:58] how your body is feeling matters. So before I start getting into what today's author,

[00:02:03] Leo Babouda is going to be discussing, let me stop there and get right to today's post

[00:02:08] as we optimize your life. How to Make Exercise A Daily Habit by Leo Babouda of Zen Habits.net

[00:02:20] Recently my friend and fellow blogger Scott Young did a great post titled,

[00:02:25] New to Exercise, Make Workouts Daily. It was an excellent post and perfectly timed as it mirrors

[00:02:31] my own recent efforts at making exercise a daily habit. The problem with trying to make

[00:02:37] exercise a habit and it's something that we've all faced is that you usually try to exercise

[00:02:42] three or four times a week and that makes creating a new exercise habit difficult. The reason

[00:02:48] is that the more consistent an action is, the more likely it is to be a habit. Therefore, as Scott

[00:02:54] points out and it's something I fully agree with, exercising every day is more likely to result in a

[00:03:01] habit, something that becomes almost automatic and much easier instead of a constant struggle.

[00:03:07] I've been implementing this idea in my daily life recently, alternating every day between different

[00:03:13] exercises, running, swimming, biking and strength workouts as a way of reaching my goal of completing

[00:03:19] an Olympic distance triathlon this year. I'm going to continue this habit change into the month of

[00:03:25] May. I made daily running a habit last year when I was training for my first marathon,

[00:03:30] but this year I stopped when I got sick so I'm restarting the habit formation.

[00:03:35] If you're going to make this a habit do a 30-day challenge and by the end of the

[00:03:39] challenge your habit should be pretty well ingrained. Here are some practical suggestions

[00:03:44] I've learned along the way to help make exercise a daily habit.

[00:03:48] 1. Set a time. Decide whether you're more likely to stick with it in the morning or

[00:03:54] lunchtime or evening and stick with that time. I've set the time of 5.30 a.m. every day and

[00:04:02] I'm trying my best not to vary from that time. If you don't set a time, you're more likely

[00:04:07] to put it off until you have some more time or energy and then put it off until the next day.

[00:04:12] Soon it's not a habit at all. 2. Send yourself a reminder.

[00:04:18] There are a number of ways to send yourself an email or text reminder so you'll never forget.

[00:04:23] Then when you get the reminder do it right away. 3. Start small.

[00:04:29] This is perhaps the most useful suggestion of all. When I start exercising I always start

[00:04:35] with lots of energy, enthusiasm and ambition. I think I can do more than I can. However,

[00:04:40] doing too much in the beginning leads to burnout which leads to quitting your habit.

[00:04:45] When you first try to make exercise a daily habit, chances are your body won't be used to that

[00:04:50] kind of stress. The key? Only do 20 minutes in the beginning and do it nice and easy.

[00:04:56] Nothing hard. Even 10-15 minutes is fine at first if you're just starting out.

[00:05:02] The key is to get out there. Get your body slowly used to daily exercise and form that habit.

[00:05:08] 4. Progress later. Once your body is used to daily exercise, you can slowly start to increase the

[00:05:15] amount and intensity of your exercise. Wait at least two weeks before starting to increase.

[00:05:21] That's the minimum your body needs to adjust. Once it begins to feel way too easy,

[00:05:26] you can start increasing the length of your workouts to 30 and then 40 minutes and eventually

[00:05:32] up to an hour. Once you do that, you can gradually increase the intensity like

[00:05:37] running faster or harder. Try not to increase both distance and intensity at the same time.

[00:05:43] 5. Make it pleasurable. If you associate a habit with pain,

[00:05:48] you will shy away from it. But if it's fun, you'll look forward to doing it.

[00:05:53] That's why in this beginning stage of my new habit, I've been focusing on pleasure.

[00:05:58] I go slowly, enjoying the scenery, the fresh morning air, the beautiful sky as the sun rises,

[00:06:04] the quiet time of solitude and contemplation. It's actually something I enjoy doing.

[00:06:10] 6. Lay out your gear. The fewer obstacles and less friction there is in forming your new habit,

[00:06:17] the more likely you are to be successful. If you have to not only wake up early,

[00:06:22] but get a bunch of gear together while half awake, you might just want to go back to bed.

[00:06:27] But if you lay out your workout clothes and shoes and watch or whatever you need for your exercise,

[00:06:33] you'll be ready to go with no friction at all. 7. Just head out the door.

[00:06:39] My rule is to just get my running shoes on and get out the door. I don't worry about how long

[00:06:44] I have to go or how hard it will be. Just get out and get started. Once I've done that,

[00:06:49] it's a piece of cake. 8. Mix it up.

[00:06:53] One thing I like about triathlon training is that daily exercise isn't boring.

[00:06:58] Instead of running every single day, now I've got a variety of sports to do and that makes it much

[00:07:02] more interesting. But perhaps just as important is that with each sport, I'm using different

[00:07:08] muscles, especially with swimming. Sure, some of the same muscles are used but they're used

[00:07:13] differently with different stresses on them. What that means is that I'm not pounding the

[00:07:18] same muscles every day. That gives them a chance to recover because without recovery,

[00:07:23] you're just breaking your muscles down over and over. 9. Have a relative rest day.

[00:07:30] Again, recovery is very important, which is why you need to give your body a chance to rest.

[00:07:35] If you're taking it easy and only doing 20 minutes, you should be okay without rest days.

[00:07:40] But it's still good to have one day of rest where you're not doing the same exercises

[00:07:44] as the other six days. You don't want to skip the day completely because then you're not being

[00:07:49] consistent with your habit. That's why I do one day of strength training where I don't use the

[00:07:54] same muscles as swimming, biking and running. If you need more rest, you could just do 20 minutes

[00:08:00] of walking or even just a session of meditation. The key is to do something every day, which

[00:08:06] will keep your habit formation going. 10. Don't skip a day. It's easy to say,

[00:08:13] no problem. I've been doing it for five days. I'll just skip today, but that will make your

[00:08:17] habit formation harder. Consistency is key. So try not to skip a single day. If you do,

[00:08:23] don't beat yourself up. Don't judge. Don't feel bad. Everyone messes up sometimes. And habit

[00:08:29] formation is the skill that requires practice. Just start your 30 day challenge over again

[00:08:34] and try to identify the obstacle that led to your skipping a day and prepare for it this time.

[00:08:44] You just listened to the post titled, How to Make Exercise a Daily Habit by Leo Babauda

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[00:10:02] Dr. Neal here for my commentary. So remember at the beginning of today's episode I had that quick

[00:10:07] disclaimer about how on the surface today's episode may contradict what I had been ranting

[00:10:13] and raving about in the past. But remember that I also promised that it wouldn't contradict it.

[00:10:18] That's because Leo took great care to mention a few exceptions to working out every day.

[00:10:23] He said it's important to allow your muscles to recover because without adequate recovery,

[00:10:29] your muscles will never get a chance to grow and get stronger. Next, Leo talked about how exercise

[00:10:35] doesn't have to be running or biking or swimming. It can even be a light walk or even meditation.

[00:10:42] And in fact, the last thing we want to do when our muscles are sore is to just sit there

[00:10:47] and relax all day. If we want to speed up recovery, one of the best things we can do

[00:10:53] is work those muscles again, but in a very gentle way. So please don't feel like every day has to be

[00:10:59] about hard intense exercise. It doesn't. But to get this to become a habit, the key is consistency.

[00:11:08] All right, that'll do it for today. I hope you have a great Wednesday. Thank you so much for

[00:11:13] listening and I'll be back here tomorrow as usual. So I'll see you there where your optimal life awaits.