Over the last few years, exercise has become a non-negotiable part of my day. Friends and family now call me a ‘gym junkie’ but believe me, I’m not.
Typically when you think of ‘gym junkies’, you think of people who have huge bulging muscles and are striving to achieve a perfectly chiseled physique. I am not one of those people.
The reason I exercise every day is because it makes me feel really good. It clears my mind and sharpens my thinking.
Simply put, without exercise, I feel a little ‘meh’.
But when I move in ways that feel good for my body, I feel energised, alert, sharper, more creative and powerful, and less stressed.
In short, exercise has become my secret weapon to super productivity, confidence, and enhanced well-being. And it can be your secret weapon too.
But first you may need to get out of your own way.
You may have some resistance to exercise. I get that.
You see, I didn’t always have such a great relationship with exercise myself.
For the first 15 years of my life, I was incredibly sedentary. A bona fide sloth.
I sucked at team sports. I was often picked last for the team in sports class.
I developed this idea that me and exercise just weren’t meant for each other. So I did whatever I could to avoid exercising. In year 11, somehow I convinced my sports teacher to let me study for other subjects while everyone else ran around the oval.
In my world, exercise was a waste of time.
But then at the age of 17, I accidently discovered a tae-bo class. After an hour of punching a bag and karate kicking, I was on this incredible high. Never in my life had I felt this good.
Needless to say, that tae-bo class became the highlight of my week. It got me through year 12 without going insane.
Here’s the thing: the more I exercised, the better I felt and the more energy I had for the things that were most important to me.
Over a series of blog posts I’m going to share with you how you can make friends with exercise.
First things first: Developing your ‘exercise’ mindset
Let’s start by changing how you think about exercise. Without the right mindset, you could be setting yourself up for failure and disappointment.
Below are some tools and strategies for developing a mindset that will sustain you for a lifetime of exercise. Many of the strategies (but not all) come from motivational scientist Dr Michelle Segar’s book ‘No Sweat: How the simple science of motivation can bring you a lifetime of fitness’.
1. Focus on the immediate rewards exercise gives you
Dr Segar says that where many of go wrong when it comes to exercise is we focus on distant, abstract goals (e.g. disease prevention, losing weight and lowering cholesterol). The problem is these goals aren’t compelling enough to overcome our inertia and busy schedules.
It’s far more effective to focus on what physical movement gives you immediately:
Energy
Positive mood
Life satisfaction
Better sleep
Productivity
Creativity
Better problem solving
Better self worth
And it gives you less of this:
Stress
Anxiety
Depression
Cognitive decline
Low self-esteem
ADHD
When you focus on these immediate benefits exercise seems more relevant to your daily life. Subsequently, you’re more likely to go do it.
2. You don’t need to be motivated or inspired to exercise
When it comes to being physically active, exercise Guru Michelle Bridges talks about motivation as being like a bad boyfriend. She says:
“It’s never there when you need it! It’s about being consistent and just getting out there and getting your training done, even when you don’t feel like it”.
Some days you’ll wake up feeling motivated. Some days you won’t. Bridges stresses that you should not rely on being motivated to get the job done. She recommends going into ‘Robot mode’ and just executing the moves.
3. Reframe what exercise means to you
Does exercise feel like a chore and hard work? Or is it something that you enjoy doing? The way in which you relate to exercise can determine whether you engage in it or not, and for how long.
A study called ‘Work or fun?’ found that the way a behaviour is framed, either as work or a fun activity, had a dramatic impact on participants’ behaviour.
When the behaviour was framed as being work, participants had trouble finishing the task and felt depleted. Whereas when the same behaviour was framed as an opportunity to have fun, participants felt vitalised.
The same thing applies to exercise. Dr Segar argues that when you choose to exercise in ways that feel like fun and not hard work, you’re more likely to stick at it.
You also want to think outside the box and expand your definition of exercise. Exercise can include activities such as vacuuming and gardening. If you’re moving your body, it counts. All that movement adds up.
4. Exorcise exercise: Getting rid of your baggage
Many of us are not quite sure about exercise. Dr Michelle Segar explains that this ambivalence people feel is due to the “accumulation of experiences over their lifetime about why they should do it [exercise] and how it feels”.
For me, team sports left me with bad feelings about exercise and stopped me moving for a number of years.
So the question is, how do we deal with our exercise baggage?
Dr Segar suggests that we ‘Exorcise Exercise’ through listing all the limiting beliefs and expectations you have around exercise. She recommends you take 2 – 5 minutes to get all your beliefs down.
Take a moment to review everything you have written down and then….
Rip it up!
Well done. You have just exorcised exercise.
5. Ditch punishing forms of exercise
Many of us develop particular ideas around what counts as exercise and what doesn’t count. We think that unless we are dripping in sweat and pushing ourselves to the extreme, then we’re not exercising.
The problem is when most people exercise in such an intense way, they don’t enjoy it. Research by Panteleimon Ekkekakis found that there is an inverse relationship between how intensely we exercise and how we feel that follows a dose-response pattern. In short, if you push yourself too hard, chances are it’s going to be a really unpleasant experience.
And because it’s human nature to avoid what feels bad and strive toward what feels good, most people won’t sustain such brutal exercise programs.
So just keep in mind that you’re more likely to stick at forms of exercise that make your mind and body feel good.
To sum up
When we can rid ourselves of our baggage around exercise, focus on the immediate rewards it gives us, and engage in physical movement that we enjoy, exercise begins to look less like a chore.
As Dr Michelle Segar says exercise is a strategy that gives us the energy to fulfill on the projects that are most important to us.
In the next blog post, I outline some practical strategies and tools that help me and other people to exercise on a daily basis. Combined with the right mindset, these strategies can help you to incorporate more movement into even the busiest of schedules.
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This means you need to prepare yourself mentally and physically for them.
You can work so hard to memorise large quantities of information for an exam, but if you’re not mentally and physically prepared, all that hard work can sadly go to waste.
When it comes time to take your exams, you have to relate to yourself as a professional athlete. Leading up to the day of the big performance (i.e. the exam), you need to eat nutritious food, be in the right frame of mind, manage your nerves, and allow your body to rest. These simple things can make all the difference to your exam performance.
You may be thinking “But isn’t this just common sense?”
It is! But creating healthy habits takes time and practice.
It’s one thing to intellectually know you should be eating well but it’s another thing altogether to incorporate healthy meals and snacks into your lifestyle.
I see a lot of students drinking energy drinks, getting very little sleep, and eating highly processed foods in the days leading up to exams. I have to admit, there was a time when I engaged in these behaviours too. I can tell you from personal experience, this is a recipe for mediocre grades and a miserable existence.
Here are my top 10 tips to prevent burnout and boost exam performance:
Sleep is critical to the learning process, exam performance, and wellbeing. Yet it’s usually the first thing students sacrifice to get more study done.
If you miss two hours of sleep each night for a week, the cognitive effects are as bad as going without sleep for two days straight!
Studies have also found that if you stay awake for 18 hours straight that’s like having a blood alcohol level of 0.05. In other words, it’s like being legally drunk. Your ability to focus, think, and learn will be seriously impaired.
You can’t adapt to getting less sleep. As adolescents, you need about 9-10 hours of sleep per night to be as alert as possible when you wake up.
If that feels unachievable, try to just get an extra 15 minutes of sleep tonight. Gradually increase this each night until you reach your target.
Often students stop exercising when they start preparing for exams. They think “I don’t have time to exercise!”. It’s as if they think they must spend every moment studying. Don’t fall into this trap.
Movement is your friend when it comes to studying for exams.
Research shows engaging in regular physical movement will help you to study more effectively. Firstly, it’s a great way to relieve stress and release feel good chemicals. Secondly, it gets the blood flowing more efficiently to your brain, which can give you a cognitive boost.
One study found students who engaged in 5 minute movement breaks every 17 minutes during a lecture retained more information and could focus better.
Every time you engage in a short movement break, you’re enhancing your study sessions.
Research has found that students who skip breakfast experience a decrease in cognitive performance and alertness compared to students who eat breakfast.
Eating a nutritious breakfast will give you a cognitive boost before an exam. It will also help you to feel fuller for longer, stabilise your mood, and give you plenty of energy to get through the exam.
Here are some healthy breakfast ideas:
Muesli or porridge with nuts and fresh fruit (e.g., berries) Wholemeal toast with a variety of toppings (e.g., baked beans, tomatoes, and avocado) and a piece of fruit A healthy homemade smoothie (click here for my brain boosting smoothie recipe)
Your brain requires adequate hydration to function properly. Drinking water ensures that your brain receives the necessary fluids to perform tasks efficiently, such as retaining information and problem-solving.
Take regular sips of water as you study. It’s a good idea to have a glass of water or a reusable drink bottle within arms reach.
You may even want to create a tiny habit to remind yourself to engage in this simple behaviour (e.g., “After I finish answering a practice exam question, I will take a sip of water”).
Many years ago, I started thinking that my teachers and lecturers were out to get me. I thought they would mark me down wherever they got the chance. As a result of this distorted thinking, I became too scared to write anything in one of my first tests at law school. After receiving a terrible grade (5%), my brother said to me:
“Remember sis, your teachers want you to do well. They will try to give you marks wherever they can. It’s in their best interest to do so.”
Don’t worry about writing a perfect answer. If you’re unsure, be brave and still write something down. Even if it’s just a few dot points, it’s better than nothing. You may not get any marks for it, but your teachers won’t take marks off.
Just remember, most of the time your teachers are on your side and they want you to succeed. When you do well, it makes them look good.
Chances are there will always be something that you could have studied more thoroughly come the day of your exam. But on the morning of an exam, you can’t do much about that, so there’s no point worrying. Worrying will just deplete your finite energy, which you need to conserve for the exam.
Instead of worrying, try saying this to yourself before each exam:
“I now know so much more than I did before. I’ll be able to answer many questions in this exam.”
Telling yourself this positive micro-thought will allow you to enter the exam in a calm and confident frame of mind.
It’s normal to feel a bit nervous before an exam. But there are certain things and people that can push your anxiety levels into dangerous territory and impair your exam performance.
For example, coffee and energy drinks will skyrocket your stress levels. Similarly, hanging out with people who have a lot of nervous energy and are venting about the exam (“I’m going to fail!” and “I hardly studied!”) are going to leave you feeling distracted and a little jangled.
Before the exam, do your best to isolate yourself from these people. If you’re worried about offending someone who is venting to you, you could say “I’m sorry but I really need to do some last minute cramming”. Then proceed to pull out your notes and pretend to read them.
How many times have you stayed back after an exam to talk to your friends about what you put for each question? Have you ever felt terrible after doing this?
It can be reassuring to know that you wrote the same answer as your friends. But if you find out that you wrote something completely different, you may start to second guess yourself. If you have another four or five exams to go, this may throw you off your game.
This is why I don’t recommend engaging in a postmortem of the exam until you get your results/exam paper back.
When you walk out of the exam room, tell yourself:
“That exam is over. There’s nothing I can do to change how I went. It’s time to move on!”.
You could imagine yourself locking the exam in a box and throwing it off a cliff or rolling it up and stuffing it in a bottle and throwing it out to sea. The point is you need to mentally disconnect from that exam and focus on studying for the next one.
If you come across a question that you’re not sure how to answer, stop for a moment and take a few deep breaths (in for the count of 4 and out for the count of 4).
A simple breath activity you can try is the Box Breathing Technique. This involves imagining yourself breathing along the sides of a box (breathing in for the count of four on one side, out for the count of four on the next side, etc). Repeat this 2-3 times. Then take a look at the question again.
If you are still unsure how to answer the question, move on to another question.
The worst thing you can do is panic (remember, stress impairs your ability to think and recall information).
By engaging in Box Breathing, you can help yourself to remain in a calm and stable state.
Many of us are familiar with writer’s cramp. This can be caused by gripping onto your pen too tightly. Try loosening your grip a little.
Alternatively, experiment with a range of different pens. Some biros require you to press down hard on the page to make a mark, but not gel pens. The ink just flows onto the page!
The reality is, even with a good gel pen, your elbow will start to hurt at some point if you’re taking a 3 hour exam. When it does start to hurt, have a rest for a few seconds (yes, you have time to do this). Stretch your arm out. Shake it a little.
Treat each exam like a mountain hike rather than a 100 metre sprint. Resting for a few moments here and there will be time well spent and will enhance your overall performance.
These simple strategies can help to elevate your exam performance. My advice is to start small. Even if your exams are several weeks away, select one or two of these ideas and start testing them out today. At first, the strategies will require a bit of mental effort. But like anything in life, if you persevere they’ll become second nature to you and they’ll just be things you do without even thinking.
Want to learn more exam strategies? Click here to download a free copy of 70 ways to ace your exams.
About 10 years ago I met the beloved Australian celebrity Costa Georgiardis from the television show Gardening Australia.
I was blown away by Costa’s energy and enthusiasm.
He was exactly like he appeared on TV. But he wasn’t hamming it up for the camera. Costa was the real deal.
He was high on life.
I’ve heard that people often ask Costa “Why are you so energetic?”, “Why are you so up?”, and “Don’t you get tired?”
Some people feel tired just being around Costa (check out this video to get a sense of Costa’s energy).
What’s the difference between motivated and energised people and less motivated people who struggle to get off the couch?
According to Stanford professor Dr Andrew Huberman the difference has everything to do with dopamine.
In this blog post, I want to explore how dopamine works and how you can adjust your dopamine levels to experience more motivation, focus, and energy in a safe and healthy way. Let’s go!
Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that is involved in reward processing. Your brain releases this molecule whenever it anticipates a reward.
In a healthy brain and environment, dopamine plays an important role in keeping you motivated, focused, and on track with your goals.
Unfortunately, this natural feedback system can be hijacked by big tech companies and fast food corporations.
Tonic dopamine is your baseline level of dopamine that circulates through your system. People who are generally enthusiastic and motivated have a high baseline dopamine. But if you struggle with motivation and often feel lethargic, chances are you have a low baseline dopamine.
But then there’s phasic dopamine. This is where you experience peaks in dopamine above your baseline level. These peaks occur as a result of engaging in certain behaviours and/or consuming certain substances.
For example, social media companies train users to seek out quick, easy, and frequent hits of dopamine. Fast food companies engineer foods that have just the right amount of salt, fat and/or sugar to release big spikes in dopamine. This make you want to eat more of the food product and keep going back for more.
It’s important to understand that these peaks in dopamine don’t last.
After engaging in a dopamine-rich activity, you will experience an inevitable drop in dopamine. And this drop will be below your baseline level.
It should come as no surprise that when you’re in a dopamine deficit state you don’t feel very good. You experience pain and discomfort.
According to Psychiatrist Dr Anna Lembke this is our brain’s way of trying to bring everything back into balance and establish homeostasis.
In the book Dopamine Nation Dr Lembke talks about how pleasure and pain are experienced in overlapping regions of the brain. She states:
“Pleasure and pain work like a balance”.
If you tip to the side of pleasure or pain, self regulatory mechanisms kick in to bring everything back into balance.
But you never want to tip to one side for too long. Dr Lembke states:
“With repeated exposure to the same or similar pleasure stimulus, the initial deviation to the side of pleasure gets weaker and shorter and the after-response to the side of pain gets stronger and longer, a process scientists call neuroadaptation . . . we need more of the drug of choice to get the same effect.”
In other words, consuming more of a dopamine-rich substance or behaviour is bad for your brain. It will leave you in a dopamine-deficit-state.
And when you’re in this state, it’s much harder to do your school work.
There are a number of simple things you can do to regenerate your dopamine receptors and increase your baseline dopamine. I’ve listed several strategies below.
Before you start your work or study, you want to avoid engaging in activities that will cause spikes in dopamine. If you watch TikTok videos or play video games before sitting down to do your homework, this is going to make your work feel a lot more painful and boring.
Here’s why . . .
Dr Huberman states that how motivated you feel to do a task depends on your current dopamine levels and what previous peaks in dopamine you have experienced. This is important to understand because with this knowledge, you can create routines and habits to conserve your dopamine and motivation for pursuing your goals.
With this in mind, I’ve recently simplified my morning routine in the following ways:
• I don’t start the day by looking at my phone or computer
• I exercise without listening to music
• I have a healthy breakfast of overnight oats and berries rather than a super sweet smoothie
• I have a cold shower (more on why I do this below)
Whilst this may sound boring, it’s had a dramatic impact on how easy it is for me to get stuck into doing my work.
The term ‘Dopamine Detox’ is a little misleading since it’s technically not possible to detox from dopamine. Nevertheless, the idea is a good one.
When you engage in a dopamine detox, you’re taking a break from engaging in dopamine-rich activities (e.g., consuming junk food, going on social media, and watching Netflix). This will give your dopamine receptors a chance to regenerate.
After taking a dopamine detox, you’ll probably notice that simple things like eating basic wholefoods or going for a walk are much more pleasurable. As Dr Huberman points out:
“Our perception for dopamine is heightened when our dopamine receptors haven’t seen much dopamine lately.”
Research shows that cold water therapy (i.e., being submerged in cold water) can increase your dopamine by 250% above your baseline level.
Let’s put that in context:
Chocolate increases dopamine by 150% above baseline
Alcohol increases dopamine by 200% above baseline
Nicotine increases dopamine by 225% above baseline
Cocaine increases dopamine by 350% above baseline
Amphetamines increases dopamine by 1100%
You need to remember that these peaks in dopamine are followed by a sudden crash below your baseline level. Let’s not overlook the fact that chronic substance abuse causes brain damage and can be fatal.
Unlike other addictive substances, cold showers create peaks in dopamine that can last for several hours. You also don’t experience the subsequent dramatic crash below your baseline level.
Word of warning: Before you turn on the cold shower tap or start running an ice-bath, it’s important to be aware that people can go into shock when plunging themselves into cold water. Please be careful!
If cold showers aren’t really your thing, try increasing your dopamine with exercise. Exercise has been found to increase dopamine by 130% above your baseline level.
In the book Move The Body, Heal The Mind, neuroscientist Dr Jennifer Heisz says:
“Exercise increases dopamine and repopulates dopamine receptors to help the brain heal faster during recovery [from addiction]. Although all forms of exercise can do this, runner’s high may do it best.”
Look for ways to make it harder to engage in the dopamine-rich activities. Create barriers and/or friction points to stop you from mindlessly seeking quick shots of dopamine.
For example, I recently noticed I had a problem with compulsively checking my phone. Whenever I felt bored or lonely, I’d check my phone to see if I’d received any messages. I didn’t like the fact I was doing this but I found it hard to stop. What could I do?
I could use a dumb phone.
I found a ‘seniors’ flip phone that allowed me to do basic things like make calls and send texts. But sending texts is not easy! I have to type in each letter and change from upper to lower case. It really puts you off wanting to text your friends.
Since switching to a dumb phone, the number of times I touch my phone each day has significantly decreased.
As you do your work, praise yourself for the effort you’re putting in. Doing this can increase the dopamine you have for the activity.
Dr Huberman suggests saying the following while you’re doing painful work:
“I know this is painful. But you need to keep at it. Because it’s painful, it’s going to increase my dopamine later and I’m doing this by choice.”
We live in a dopamine-rich world. It’s so easy to flood your brain with quick hits of dopamine that feel good in the moment but leave you feeling flat and irritable shortly after. These peaks in dopamine make it harder for us to pursue our goals by undermining our motivation.
No matter what your current dopamine baseline is, just remember this: you have the ability to increase your dopamine in a healthy and sustainable way. Kick-start the process today!
Here’s a simple thing you can do to help you focus better and improve your study sessions . . .
Take regular exercise breaks.
A study titled Sweat so you don’t forget found that engaging in regular five minute exercise breaks reduced mind wandering, improved focus, and enhanced learning.
In this study the researchers wanted to know if engaging in short exercise breaks could help with learning.
They took a group of 75 psychology students and split them into three groups.
Group 1: Exercise breaks group
Group 2: Non-exercise breaks group
Group 3: No breaks group
All the students had to watch the same 50 minute psychology lecture. But the difference between the groups was this . . .
The exercise breaks group performed five minutes of exercise every 17 minutes. The non-exercise breaks group played a simple video game for five minutes every 17 minutes. The no breaks group had to watch the entire lecture without getting a single break.
The students in the exercise breaks group could focus better and they retained more information. They also found the lecturer easier to understand.
The researchers said:
“The exercise breaks buffered against declines in attention resulting in superior engagement during the latter part of the lecture compared to the other two groups.”
One would think they would show some improvements in attention and memory since they were getting breaks. But they didn’t show any significant improvements.
In fact, they performed just as well as the no breaks group in terms of attention and memory.
The researchers concluded:
“One possibility is that the computer game played during the non-exercise break may have acted as a second cognitive task as opposed to a cognitive break. Switching between two cognitive tasks can deplete attention and impair performance for both tasks.”
This shows the type of activity you engage in on a study break is really important. It pays to get out of your head and move your body!
It was a series of exercises performed for 50 seconds each followed by a rest break:
1) Jumping jacks (50 seconds) + Rest (10 seconds)
2) Heeltaps (50 seconds) + Rest (10 seconds)
3) High knees (50 seconds) + Rest (10 seconds)
4) Split jumps (50 seconds) + Rest (10 seconds)
5) Hamstring kickers (50 seconds) = The End
Since reading this study, I’ve started to incorporate more exercise breaks into my day and I’m noticing a big difference.
Personally, I’m not a fan of some of the exercises the researchers made the participants do in this study. So, I have replaced them with other cardio exercises I enjoy doing, such as punching a boxing bag and using a skipping rope.
I also find doing 50 seconds of non stop exercise pretty exhausting. For this reason, I’ve reduced my exercise time down to 40 seconds followed by a 20 second rest break. I find it helps to time my exercise sprints/rest breaks using an interval timer on my phone instead of a kitchen timer (which can feel a little clunky).
Feel free to experiment with different exercise/rest ratios. Make it work for you. As your fitness levels improve, you can increase the period of time you exercise for.
After working for 20 or 30 minutes, get up and take a five minute exercise break.
You don’t have to do jumping jacks or hamstring kickers. Select simple exercises you want to do.
Notice how you feel before and after your exercise break.
After experimenting with this simple strategy, I can say with confidence that I feel more energised and mentally sharper throughout the day. Try it and let me know how you go!
Dr Jane Genovese delivers interactive sessions on learning to learn, combating procrastination, exam preparation, how to focus in the age of distraction, habit formation and much, much more!
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