How to improve your motivation to exercise
Do you find that your motivation to exercise is not where you want it to be? Is it difficult to maintain the motivation even after you’ve told yourself that you’re going to stick it out this time? Well, you aren’t alone. And recent studies are showing that your motivation to exercise is affected by your gut microbiome.
How to improve motivation to exercise
We have known that exercise affects our microbiomes. This information has been available for a few years and is why we so often suggest exercising as a way to modify your ratio of gut bugs. But this novel research is suggesting the opposite effect, too!
Before we get into that we want to share a little bit of information about how exercise affects our microbiome because that has a big impact on our understanding of this new research.
How does exercise affect your gut microbiome?
Our bodies were created to move constantly. We weren’t made to sit in offices for 8 hours a day and then sit on the couch for the rest of the evening. Although our bodies do adapt to these new norms, they weren’t made for them. As our habits change, so do the microbes that inhabit our guts.
When looking at the microbiomes of people who live different lifestyles, their gut microbes vary as much as their lifestyles do.
- Marathon runners have specific microbes that help their muscles perform for longer periods of exercise.
- People who exercise on a regular basis (but not to the extent of marathoners) also have a specific set of bacteria in their guts that allow them to look forward to working out.
- Sedentary lifestyles also have a distinct microbial profile. This type of profile promotes disease and a lack of motivation to make healthier decisions.
But how exactly does activity level affect the microbiomes of these people?
It’s pretty simple actually.
- Exercising helps promote digestion. (That’s why when you’re constipated your doctor tells you to walk/exercise more.) When we digest our food better, we also use the nutrients in the food more efficiently.
- Exercising causes our guts to create more butyrate-producing microbes. These specific microbes allow us to use our carbohydrates more effectively. Butyrate (a short-chain fatty acid) affects all of our cells to improve health (brain, muscles, digestion, improved metabolic function, etc.)
There’s more to it than just this, but for the sake of basic gut health alterations, this is it. Our digestion and microbial diversity are improved and that helps improve our gut health.
What is motivation?
Understanding motivation and how it works within our brain is another key part of understanding the full extent of the study.
Motivation is controlled by a part of our brain called the striatum. The neurons in this center of our brain are directly affected by dopamine.
Dopamine is one of our neurotransmitters that deals with the reward cycle.
So when we do actions that cause an increase of dopamine in our brain, it rewards us for that action. Rewards for action tell our brain to do that action again to get that reward sensation and thus we have our motivation developed for that action.
But where does our gut health come into play with this cycle?
How does gut health improve our motivation to exercise?
Our brains are more controlled by our gut than we realize. The gut is actually dubbed “the second brain” because it has that much control over our primary brain.
The gut microbiome breaks down our food and releases chemicals from the food to help our body maintain homeostasis. These chemicals are able to manipulate our brain chemistry to have different effects on our health and mood. This phenomenon is referred to as the gut-brain axis and its responsible for so much of our health — mental, physical, and emotional.
If we are looking at dopamine alone, more than 50% of our dopamine is synthesized in our guts. If that isn’t enough to convince you, the following study will.
A study was done at the University of Pennsylvania on mice to help us understand just how motivation and the gut are interrelated.
They took mice who were bred to run. These mice would run around 20 miles within a 48-hour period — willingly. These mice were tested against other mice who either exercised regularly (but not as often as the super runner mice) and sedentary mice who tried to not exercise at all if possible.
Some of the super runner mice were given antibiotics to deplete their microbiomes. While the mice did not become sick (the way other mice normally do when given antibiotics) they did experience a 21% decrease in mileage. There was also a decreased dopamine response in their striatum meaning they didn’t get that same “runner high” that they used to experience after exercising.
The mice were then fed fatty acid amides (FAAs) to reestablish their microbiomes. This brought back their desire to run as much as they did prior to the microbiome depletion.
This study shows the elasticity of the microbiome itself. When it is depleted, it can always relearn what it used to be, as long as the right conditions are met. So if you remember a time in your life when you had more motivation to do things (especially exercise) you’re in luck, there is hope for you yet!
How to improve your motivation to exercise
We all know that our stubborn brains don’t like to be told what to do to become healthier — mainly because that puts the blame on ourselves, and who wants that? Nobody.
So, if you’d like to improve your motivation go through your gut. Work on things that improve your gut health rather than focusing on your motivation — or lack thereof.
Get your microbiome in shape by:
- Sleeping better
- Eating healthier (proteins and fiber are important for staying full and avoiding cravings)
- Practice mindfulness and gratitude
- Do light exercises that are microbiome friendly and don’t feel so strenuous (studies show that exercising lightly 3 times a week for 30 minutes is enough to alter your microbiome positively)
- Drinking adequate amounts of water
- Take Atrantil to nourish your microbiome and feed your healthy bacteria
Making little changes to your life is important for your body but can often go undetected by the brain that you’re doing something out of the norm. Winning your mind over is half the battle, but by starting in your gut it doesn’t feel like such a fight. So focus on your gut and from there, your lifestyle changes will follow.
Give this article a share with your friends who could use some extra motivation!