At Psychology of Movement we often say “meet yourself where you’re at.”
This is a nod to the reality that as humans we vary in our physical and mental states from day to day. When we feel physically fresh and energetic or focused and determined, it’s easier to exercise. On the contrary, feeling sluggish, fed up and apprehensive about a workout can make it harder to initiate.
Why is this? We know from research that fatigue and stress can increase the perceived costs of physical effort, which goes some way towards explaining why exercise can feel like an ordeal when we’re in those states. But we want to focus on one specific psychological factor today - mood incongruence.
When we say mood incongruence, we are referring to instances when our actions, plans, situation or thinking do not align with the mood or general psychological state that we are currently in. For example, what is required in doing a max-effort weightlifting session may be incongruent with feelings of sadness or exhaustion, or going to a busy gym for the first time where you'll be exposed to lots of new people and unknowns might feel incongruent with anxiety.
To an extent, this is an individual thing. The level of (in)congruence between specific moods and activities differs from person to person, and this depends on how they are affected by different emotional states. But there are also some common cases of incongruence that we will dig into shortly.
Now, sometimes the very fact that an activity is incongruent with the mood in question is a good reason to do it. For instance, a slow yoga class might be helpful for someone who is stressed precisely because it involves actions that are the opposite of those that stress energises us to do, and those actions can help to reduce psychological and physiological stress markers. Equally, sometimes a high-energy exercise class is what you need if you are feeling sluggish - activating your sympathetic nervous system and getting blood and endorphins pumping round your body can alleviate feelings of lethargy.
However, the difficulty with mood incongruence is that because the motives and energy activated by the person’s mood are at odds with those usually associated with exercise, they can make it harder to want to do or prioritise. For instance, anxiety occurs when motives are activated in us that relate to protecting ourselves from threats, which may be polar opposite to the more approach-related motives of pursuing something we want (e.g. to get fitter). Furthermore, our focus when anxious tends to be directed towards anticipating negative scenarios, and it can be difficult to focus on our own goals when we are distracted by these worries.
Or consider a situation where someone is feeling tired and fed up. The motives to rest, relax and withdraw effort are likely to feel stronger in that situation than the motives to exert effort to pursue a fitness goal.
And this is natural - emotional states and stress aren’t just feelings that occur in isolation. They have evolved to coordinate all aspects of our psychological experience in any one moment in different ways, even if subtly. We don’t just feel anxious; our attention is affected, our thought patterns go in a particular direction, our physiology changes and our priorities in the moment shift towards anticipating and managing unwanted events. This isn’t to say that we have to be driven by anxiety - rather we can learn to observe what is happening within us and guide our thoughts and actions in different directions. But it’s challenging, because stress and emotions work at a deep biological level and their nature is to be compelling.
This compelling nature of emotional states means that doing activities that are incongruent with the motives and foci they entail is more effortful. But there are ways of getting round this. We don’t have to give up the idea of exercising or just force ourselves to do it. There is a middle option which involves meeting yourself where you are at. What this means is that you might have to go about persuading yourself to exercise in a different manner to the way you would if you felt good.
Imagine that you were trying to motivate someone else to exercise. You'd probably speak quite differently to someone who was just feeling a bit tired and sluggish compared to someone who was extremely anxious, angry, or stressed and distracted. Why? Because you intuitively know that things land differently on us when we are in different moods, and we are more open to some forms of communication or persuasion than others. So one option is to consider what kinds of things (and ways of communicating those things) tend to land best when you're in XYZ mood, what aspect of your motivation to exercise you can access most easily, and how to shift your negotiations with yourself along these lines.
Another option is to consider the aspect of XYZ mood that is least conducive with exercise for you and to reflect on what you can do to shift just that aspect. For instance, I (Chloe) know that when I am busy and under time pressure, distraction is my biggest barrier - I struggle to focus on and connect to my desire to get in the gym, so it feels like something I don't want to prioritise in that moment. My current solution is to spend five minutes slowing down my thinking with a simple meditation exercise and to reflect on the values that underpin my exercise pursuits. I then choose a value with which to underpin my workout that is relatively congruent with my current state of busy-ness and distraction, i.e. more "relatable" and appealing to me when I am in that frame of mind. This provides me with a way of focusing and organising my actions that is more accessible to me when I am busy and distracted and makes exercise easier to connect to. That's not to say you can expect that exact strategy to work for you - after all, the best strategy is the one that fits with your psychological experience - but hopefully it provides an example to illustrate the point.
If you are looking for support in exploring how you can make these concepts work for you, feel free to get in touch.
Chloe
Psychology of Movement
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