If the idea of exercise seems more attractive to you than the reality, you will identify with Jessica Howard. She had always nurtured the vague intention of running a marathon, but had struggled to get off the sofa. “I didn’t run, I didn’t move,” she recalls. “I was a couch potato.”
This all changed when, as a student at Bangor University in the UK, she took part in a special module on offer there that aims to tackle a key challenge many of us face when it comes to exercise: motivation. It turns out that there are tricks we can use to help us break bad habits and reach our goals.
Summoning the will to exercise is a huge challenge for most people (see “Why we don’t like to exercise”, below). This is particularly problematic in higher-income countries, which have twice the levels of inactivity compared with lower-income ones, and where many people aren’t sufficiently active to stay healthy in the long term.
Certain barriers, such as ill health or a lack of suitable space and resources, can seriously restrict our capacity to exercise. For many, however, the battle is internal: we struggle to carve out the time. We may fully recognise the long-term benefits for our physical and mental health, but get drawn to things that bring more immediate rewards without the need to break a sweat – like slouching in front…
