The Difficulty of Maintaining an Exercise Routine: Our Innate Laziness is to Blame.

Whether in terms of speed or strength, humans are not the strongest creatures in nature. We have no wings, fangs, claws, venom or scales. From a physiological perspective, we are mostly second-rate players in nature.

However, in one area, humans have physiological advantages that other creatures cannot match, and this area is long-distance running. Our bipedal walking and unique sweat glands allow us humans to keep running when other creatures are tired and have to stop and rest.

After a long period of evolution, humans have gradually adapted to long-term physical activities, including exercise. Although many people are keen on exercising, if you look at those slightly empty gyms or those fitness plans that were shelved at the beginning of the year, it is not difficult to find that only a few people really like to exercise.

Why doesn’t everyone enjoy working out? This can be attributed to the complexity of the human brain.

1. The brain cares about gains and losses.

Evolution has given us a certain ability, but that doesn't mean we want to take advantage of it. For example, a creature with scale armor doesn't really want to be attacked. Exercise is not a bad thing, but it is often accompanied by discomfort and unpleasant feelings. This is inevitable. When we push our bodies to their physiological limits, the body naturally experiences a noticeable discomfort.

The human brain is very sensitive to wasted effort. Research shows that the insular cortex of the brain has a specialized neural circuit that calculates the effort required to take action and the possible rewards it will bring. This neural circuit is always asking: “Is it worth it?”

This tendency has evolved to help us avoid wasting precious resources on meaningless things. For example, traveling more than 30 kilometers for a handful of berries is obviously not cost-effective. Staying in shape through exercise requires continuous efforts, and the results of exercise are often not immediate, and the final result is uncertain. At this point, your brain will naturally have doubts about whether the effort is worth it.

This characteristic makes us instinctively tend to choose those things that provide the greatest reward for the least effort. Because of this, we tend to stick to the old ways and settle into our comfort zones.

Starting to exercise means changing your habits and working towards a goal that may not be achievable. However, our brains are wired to be risk-averse rather than taking risks in pursuit of potential gains. As a result, we tend to be highly resistant to activities that require more physical exertion.

2. The brain is also very inspiring

Although our bodies may have adapted to constant exercise, our brains still tend to avoid this type of activity. Fortunately, the human brain is an extremely complex organ, and it has ways to overcome these “lazy tendencies.”

What is clear is that the human brain is not entirely dominated by primitive instincts and desires. The thought process of many animals is limited to simple reactions such as “food, eat it!” “Danger, run!” “Pain, get out of the way!” But our thinking has gone far beyond these.

The human brain is not only capable of constructing multiple long-term goals and ambitions, but also working hard to achieve them. We are not content with living day to day, but can envision an ideal future, plan the path to achieve it, and take action. Even if it cannot be fully realized, we will continue to move in this direction.

This directly affects the way the brain processes motivation and willpower, leading to many interesting changes. One of them is our ability to delay gratification. That is, we can recognize that rejecting a reward now can lead to a greater reward in the future and act accordingly.

For example, we all know that binge-watching a TV series while eating potato chips is very enjoyable, whereas going to the gym seems less fun in comparison. But we also understand that exercise makes us healthier and stronger. So, sometimes we make up our minds and choose to exercise.

Additionally, we often fall prey to a cognitive bias called the “fair world fallacy.” That is, we tend to view the world as fair and believe that pain and suffering ultimately pays off. This is why the concept of “no pain, no gain” is widely accepted.

3. Establish the “should self” and move towards the “ideal self”

So how does the brain process all these different motivations? A psychological theory called “self-difference theory” believes that there are three “selves” coexisting deep in our hearts, namely the “actual self”, the “ideal self” and the “should self”.

Your “actual self” is who you are at this moment, and your “ideal self” is the person you aspire to be. The “should self” is the self that constantly strives to become the “ideal self” and the self that takes you from the “actual self” to the “ideal self”.

So, if your “ideal self” is a professional soccer player, and your “actual self” is far from that, then your “should self” is the one who spends a lot of time training to improve his soccer skills. .

This is just a preliminary theory of how exercise motivation works. Of course, there are far more factors that influence people's participation in exercise, such as time constraints, body image considerations, and physical flexibility requirements.

But as far as the brain is concerned, there are both thinking mechanisms that prevent us from exercising, and there are also thinking mechanisms that motivate us to exercise. Ideally, we should let the latter drive our behavior. Strength training is a common form of exercise, so start there.