Staying motivated to hit the gym almost every day doesn’t come easy, but there are many methods you can use to shift your mindset. According to a new study, mindfulness is one of the very best motivational tools out there and it can help you stay committed and look forward to your workout sessions.
The study was published by the journal Mental Health and Physical Activity, and it was conducted on 109 participants from England. They were asked to follow a daily mindfulness program with an app or use an activity monitor and try to reach a daily step goal of 8,000 over the course of 30 days.
Both groups were more active than before the study started by the time it was over, but the group using the mindfulness app actually recorded more hours of moderate exercise per week. They also felt more determined to keep working out and seemed to be more engaged in exercise.
Masha Remskar, PhD and lead study author and researcher at the University of Bath, discussed the results with Women’s Health and shared her thoughts on exercising mindfully.
“We think mindfulness training might actually help equip people with the psychological skills we might need in order to build an exercise habit. But we think it’s actually that effortful training through mindfulness that might help people build the psychological resilience to be able to tolerate some discomfort better,” Remskar explained.
