it's not just for the six-pack: how fitness improves your mind

Forces presence. As we know from Kara Zimmerman’s brilliant brain insight, your brain craves novelty. It pays more attention to the new and less to the habitual. Ever drive along in the car, on the same old route, and you zone out until you’ve reached your destination and realize you hadn’t paid attention for the last four miles? Working out, especially frequently changing up your routine, will create presence in your brain. Focused on one new task (even if it’s just lifting weights in a new way), your brain will be building brand new neural pathways and dropping you into the present moment.

Building mental toughness paves the way to success. Sticking it out, being resourceful, developing resilience - all of these things are what make someone mentally tough. Getting to the gym or group class on a regular basis, especially when you are not in the mood, requires grit. And according to one researcher from the University of Pennsylvania, “grit - the perserverence and passion to achieve long-term goals - [makes all the difference.]”

Discovering new music in class rewards your brain. Ever get into a class and think, I am just here for the playlist. I’m definitely someone who needs music to pump me up and keep me going throughout the most difficult workouts, and it turns out that this is actually giving my brain the gold star. And gold stars make everyone feel good. This study suggests that the same reward center activated during sex or eating your favorite food is activated when listening to some good tunes. So get yourself to class and pump up the volume.

Decreases your risk of dementia. Everyone knows that working out has a zillion and one physical benefits. But did you know that by just logging a few more minutes of exercise to your daily routine means you can help prevent dementia? So play those brain games (I like crosswords as much as the next geek), but don’t forget that your heart health and brain health are connected.

Endorphins make you happy. Happy people don’t kill their husbands. Did Legally Blonde teach you nothing?! Well if you’re looking for more evidence, look no further. Creating happiness in your life is an ongoing part of the journey, just like physical health, you never just arrive. All it takes is one day at a time to a happier, healthier mind. And as we’ve heard many times before, what you do with your day is what you do with your life.

You become a better leader. Risk-taking makes you a better leader, and often times exercising (especially in a group setting) feels like a risk. Trying something new, putting yourself in a position to learn rather than to already know, forbidding your fears from keeping you static and stuck has been acknowledged as a critical element of leadership. Want to be the boss of your life? Get up and move.

In what ways do you notice fitness improving your mind?

3 new ways to think about your brain

“You can do anything if you put your mind to it.” Although this sounds like a canned statement of encouragement (because it is), there is actually some truth to this greeting card sentiment. Maybe it should say something more like: “You can train your brain to do anything if your mind gives it the order.” Because that’s exactly what happens. Let me back up…

Recently, I’ve been enamored with the current research that's out there detailing brain neuroplasticity and how we can control it, so I called up my best friend Kara Zimmerman. Kara has her Masters in Neuroscience from Johns Hopkins University, in addition to her B.A. in Theatre and Dance from Muhlenberg College. Needless to say, she’s one smart, creative, utterly unstoppable chick. And it’s probably because she manhandles that brain of hers. During our conversation, three things struck me that I thought you should know. These three things transformed how I think about my brain, how to control it, and where true power lies.

1. Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff is an absolute myth. The small things are actually what matter. Kara told me, “When it comes to neurobiology, that’s all you should be worried about. Fine details, small emotions, little experiences - those things become bigger in the long run.” I get what the positive phrase is implying - it really means, gain some perspective. But Kara argues that true perspective is gained by paying attention to the small things we tend to deny or throw away. That unsettling interaction you had with your boss? The emotional turbulence when your spouse nags you about cleaning up? The stress you feel when you’re running late? All of those small instances build neural pathways and instigate a feedback loop that brings you to the same reaction again and again. There are emotions attached to these small moments, whether we acknowledge them or not, and those unnoticed emotions are sending out hormonal reinforcements causing our brain to choose the same old path simply because we're not aware of it.

Take, for instance, running late in the morning: you are moving quickly, your heart rate speeds up, you feel frenzied, you start to feel trapped, like your life is out of your control and completely defined by things out of your hands. Our mind might register all of that as: this is just my morning routine. If you ignore those emotions, or disregard them as something you are also not in control of, next time you are late for work, this feeling will most likely come up again because your brain is prepared for it. But should you pay a little more attention, should you place your mind on the fact that you are feeling stressed and trapped - you now have the ability to create an offshoot from this negative feedback loop. For example, next time you are late, instead of imagining the stressful train ride - you can choose to breathe deeply. You can choose to focus on one thing at a time. You can choose to smile. All of these things create brand new neural pathways in your brain so that you are able to handle being late much better next time. So sweating the small stuff is actually your ticket out of emotional redundancy.

2. The brain craves novelty. So it's great that we are capable of change, but it’s still so difficult to actually change a habit. There’s no way I can get my mind to go to a calm, relaxed state when I’m under a lot of stress, right? Not necessarily. According to Kara, and science, the brain craves novelty. The brain wants new experiences and it’s up to you to understand that and follow through. Kara says that we should be finding ways to reward those new experiences so that, “that small [positive] experience will start to build up and your brain will recognize that as an important neuron.” Continuing with our example of running late for work: we start to feel stressed, recognize the emotion, and begin a new action. We slow down our breathing, we smile, we make eye contact with others and we train our brain out of stress. The positive reward might be playing your favorite song on your iPod - some song that makes you feel happy, safe, most like you. Now we’ve created a novel feeling (calm during the morning rush) and rewarded that new neuron (playing our favorite music). Instead of digging into our old neural pathway, we have taken control of our brain and started to reimage it. After awhile, this will be our feedback loop instead: handling stress with acknowledgement, calm, and positive reward.

3. The brain will get rid of what it doesn’t need. This utterly fantastic idea is called pruning. Kara says, “ [Pruning] happens naturally to neurons that haven’t been used in awhile. The brain gets rid of them. Overnight, neurons will cut back in areas that aren’t as important, synapses will be taken away, and things that were important from yesterday will be important again tomorrow.” Ultimately, you are in control of telling the brain what it needs and what it doesn’t. You categorize the negative feedback loops as important by using them again and again. Being easy to anger, stressing in uncomfortable situations, ignoring the small emotions are literally being reinforced every night as important. But if you actively work to change that feedback loop, the brain will prune what you don’t use anymore. So change is less about your feeling and more about what you order the brain to remove or retain. For an Italian girl with a temper, this is handy news. This means that if we practice our de-stressing techniques enough times, our brain will weed out negative feedback loops overnight. We go to sleep and reinforce the decisions we make during the day. So in this way, each day becomes brand new, stronger, and over time,  it looks more and more like what we choose (for better or worse).

My final thought from Kara’s brilliance has to do with this analogy she made, “The mind is to the brain how walking is to the legs. Legs don’t just move on their own, and the brain doesn’t just act on its own.”

Understanding how the brain works is instrumental in taking responsibility and ownership of your circumstances. Yes, there are many hindrances in life, many setbacks, roadblocks, failures, and criticisms. But ultimately, for me, it is a comfort to know that neurologically I can address these realities with my own imagination. That the reimaging I create in my brain will be the ultimate testimony of who I am. That I could rely on predispositions, old habits, or denying my feelings but this would be as much of a choice as creating a new, healthier reality. And that now, with a better understanding of how my brain functions, I can also choose to meet difficulties as opportunities to rewire my brain, challenges as chances to reinforce a positive feedback loop, and failures as moments to reward how I grow instead of how I fail.

All in all, the brain is a powerful tool. But what I’m most excited to know is that the mind is the one in control.

What is most surprising to you about the brain?

how to trick yourself into loving fitness

There was a time that I would go to the gym, use the elliptical for 25 minutes, break a kind of sweat?, and call it a workout. Because I hated working out. Loathed. Did not enjoy. Was slightly offended anytime anyone anywhere worked out at all. Which is super weird because now I’m a group fitness instructor and personal trainer at the Bari Studio (obviously I’m biased, but Bari is one of the hottest new workout methods in NYC and if you haven’t gone, please just go sign up for class so you can understand how powerful this method is and this run-on sentence can end.)

Can you sense the 180?

My fitness aboutface happened when I was stuck in a variety of ruts that were just not reflections of me. I was pretty sure my life was the ultimate failure and everyone around me would be sucked into my Black Hole of Wah Wah if I didn’t pull it together. So I decided to make some (uncomfortable) changes.

Sidebar: If you start something new and believe that if it’s the right choice, then it should feel great, you’re completely missing the point. New = uncomfortable. And uncomfortable DOES NOT = bad.

So as I was calibrating my newfound personal agency, my interest in fitness reared its sheepish head. I wondered if my inner aggression toward fit people might just be an overcompensation - that I might actually like working out. So I gave it a shot and it turns out I do like it. A lot.

Over time, I have met many people coming back to fitness for the first time in a long time. I look at my clients’ progress and my own and know that this initial hump of “getting into fitness” is just a hump before a sweet, majestic climb to your personal best. So here I’ve compiled seven tactics for scaling that hump and getting yourself on the road to loving fitness:

1. Sleep. You fitness-haters will love this one! Sleep has to be your first priority - get enough of it, consistently, so you can springboard off the energy you gain from your ZZZs into a new fitness routine. If you’re exhausted, there’s no way in hell you’ll want to try something different, you’re just trying to get through the day. Sleep is actually even more valuable than we think: this study shows sleep disposes of toxins in the brain. Go to sleep, grab some energy, and while you’re at it get yo’ detox on.

2. Take photos to track your progress. I’ll admit, I thought this was silly advice when I got it (from Craig), but it’s super satisfying and helpful. Photos let you see progress and inspire you to make more. It’s hard to see day to day changes looking in the mirror. Take the time out to check in with yourself. Plus we just had a great post from Craig on HOW to take an awesome photo, so maybe you will create some art along the way!

Along those lines, any kind of intelligently interpreted measurement system is super helpful in getting you excited about your new fitness routine. At Bari, we use the BodyMetrix system to take ultrasounds of fat thickness. Sounds fun, right?! Well for some reason it is. Really fun. It’s motivating to see where you’re starting from and to decide where you want to go. It takes all of the guesswork out, it makes you accountable to your progress, and leaves you with something measurable so you feel empowered by your choice to work out. If you and your gym don’t have a fancy machine, do circumference measurements, or just use an old pair of pants as your benchmark. The point is: track yourself.

3. Get a team. Accountability is so huge. When Craig and I lived in Brooklyn, we’d go to the gym together a couple times a week, but when he left to work at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival for a few months, MAMA DID NOT GO. Big surprise. He was my motivation, and I happened to like spending time with the guy. Sometimes, before our own goals feel valuable enough to us, we need to hitch our wagons to someone else’s. If you don’t have a friend who can be your accountability buddy, check out a group class - pick a time every week to go, introduce yourself to the instructor, and resist the temptation to be anonymous. If groups aren’t your style, get a personal trainer. A trainer can work one on one with you on your specific goals. I have worked with people on goals ranging from weight loss to increasing their energy level. Tell your trainer what you want to achieve and get to work knowing you’ve got someone in your corner.

4. You have GOT to get some good tunes. A new fitness routine can be PAINFUL - not just from tearing your muscle fibers and building up lactic acid - but if your head isn’t used to “workout mode” it can be tedious, maybe even boring. When I create workouts, I create them in tandem with a sassy playlist that mirrors the ass-kicking we’re about to endure. Find what inspires you, what moves you, what gets you to go that extra mile. My biggest advice on this one is to get on Spotify. Pick a song that’s your total jam, and play Spotify Radio from that song. You’ll be motivated to take a run around the block just to get some one on one time with your new playlist.

Here are a few of my tried and true favorite workout songs:

Okay I can’t give all my secrets away, sheesh... 

5. The 30 Minute Experiment. Schedule 30 minutes every other day for a week. One half hour where you have nothing else scheduled, nowhere to go, nothing to do. Try to fill that 30 minutes up with a walk, or a jog, or maybe try a push up, some crunches, whatever! The point is, you have 30 minutes that you don’t have anything else to do but work out. So you might as well lace up those sneakers and see what you can bust out. 

6. Consciously rewire your brain to like fitness. Holy crap is that even possible?! Yes. Whenever we learn something new (like.. say.. a fitness routine..) we create new neural pathways in our brain. At first those pathways aren’t habitual and can feel effortful, but keep putting yourself in that space and over time you’re strengthening and rewiring your brain for optimum performance. For more smartypants stuff, this article explains the science behind this phenomenon.

7. Use fitness as a metaphor for something bigger in your life. It’s true that working out gives you a healthier physical life. But looking at fitness in a way that helps you become more balanced, present, and clear can far outweigh any physical accomplishment. When I started working out again, I realized that it was not how many push ups I could do - it was the fact that I tried at all. Life was clearly telling me that it’s all about showing up. We happened to just show up on this Earth. How inconceivable, random, and brilliant is it that we are even alive?! And now all I can do with my life is try my best. That’s the essence of your workout: just show up, and do the best you can. Tomorrow might be better or worse, but you’ll know that you showed up and gave it all you had today.

Pick one or two of these tactics, whatever combination works for you, and see if you can come to fitness with a new mindset. You are more capable of this than you could ever imagine. Try it out, and let me know what you discover!

What are your favorite ways to work out? What is the best motivation you’ve come across to get your butt to the gym? What tactics inspire you the most?