How I Became a Morning Workout Person

por Stephanie Santos

Resumen:

If adding exercise to your mornings is a goal of yours, here are some ways to build, and stick with, a morning workout routine.

1. Shift your mindset. Before you can make real progress on becoming a morning workout person, you must first confront what’s been holding you back. Try cognitive restructuring — a process that will help you reframe your thoughts and shift your mindset.
2. Prepare, prepare, prepare. On Sunday before the week starts, plan out everything you want to accomplish in the mornings, estimate how long each task takes, and then work backwards to determine what you need to do the night before and what time you need to wake up.
3. Ease into the morning. Assemble everything you need for your workout the night before. Use a light-based alarm clock for a calmer wake-up call. And take the time to sit in quiet and picture your best morning workout possible.
4. Make your workout work for you. If you find yourself struggling to get active in the morning, consider the types of movements and environments that work for your needs. The important thing is to find something you enjoy doing and will look forward to getting out of bed for every morning.
5. Reward yourself right away. It’s important to find the intrinsic and immediate rewards that can help motivate you. Ask yourself: How does working out make me feel? How do I feel when I skip a workout? Write down your answers so you can return to them when you need some motivation.
6. Take a long view. Before you berate yourself for missing a workout (or even several), step back and think about your movement in the past month, not just the past week. If most of your days include some level of physical activity, you’re on the right track.

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In theory, I’ve always been a “morning workout” person: I’ve listened to inspiring TED Talks on the benefits of exercise, read articles about why moving before work is better for your brain, and spent countless evenings with my eyes glued to morning workout routine YouTube videos, vowing to go running as the sun comes up just like the vloggers.

But when my alarm sounds at 6 am, my goals rarely become a reality. Instead of jumping out of bed ready to tackle a tough workout, I usually snooze my phone six times, throw on a slightly-better-than-pajamas WFH outfit, and open my laptop.

This cycle of idealizing a “healthy” morning, failing to reach my expectations, and feeling ashamed about it, frustrated me for years. But now, I enjoy and, for the most part, stick to a morning workout routine. Breaking the pattern took a lot of work — I’ve read countless studies, consulted my active friends, and even worked with a therapist — but it was worth it. If you’re on the same journey, here are some of the tips I’ve learned over the years about how to build, and stick with, a morning workout routine.

Shift your mindset.

Before you can make real progress on becoming a morning workout person, you must first confront what’s been holding you back. When I discussed my morning workout struggles with my therapist, she helped me understand that my challenges were rooted in what psychologists call cognitive distortions: negative mental filters rooted in a “ faulty or inaccurate thinking, perception, or belief.”

We all experience cognitive distortions, and they often fuel our anxiety. Mine sound like this:

• I’m just not a fit person and never will be.
• If I’m not sweating a ton when I exercise, it doesn’t count.
• I’m so much worse at waking up early than everyone else.
• I work out some mornings, but I should be active every single day before work.

Many people find it beneficial to work with a mental health professional to reassess unhelpful cognitive filters, but anyone can start by reframing their thoughts. The American Psychological Association (APA) calls this process cognitive restructuring.

Cognitive restructuring involves:

1. Identifying the situation that is currently upsetting you
2. Naming the most upsetting feeling you have around your given situation (guilt? fear? anger?)
3. Pinpointing the thought that is underlying that feeling
4. Evaluating the accuracy of your upsetting thought carefully and objectively
5. Deciding, based on all the evidence you’ve listed, whether your thought is accurate or not

Here’s an example:

1. I’m upset because I feel like I’m not a fit person and never will be.
2. The most upsetting feeling I have about this thought is shame.
3. Underlying this feeling is the notion that I’m not a good enough person because I’ve always been unfit.
4. When I evaluate this thought, I find multiple facts that challenge its accuracy. First, I don’t actually believe being fit makes someone a better person than others. I also haven’t always been “unfit” — I was active as a young girl, but in ways that I don’t often acknowledge. (I rode my bike everywhere. I swam in my neighbor’s pool. I loved playing on the jungle gym at school.) I’ve also proven that I’m capable of growth, as I’ve tried to challenge myself both physically and mentally in my adult life. (I’ve tried various types of exercise, including cycling, pilates, powerlifting.)
5. I guess this wasn’t a very accurate thought. Now, I can move forward with a different mindset.

As you identify, evaluate, and reframe negative mental filters, you might notice that your thoughts feel less distressing. This process took time, but it helped me understand the intentions behind my desire to develop a morning workout routine. After restructuring my thoughts, I was able to adopt a more balanced approach towards exercising in the morning. The tactics I used after felt much lower effort but still highly rewarding.

Prepare, prepare, prepare.

Once you’ve begun to shift your mindset, it’s important to set yourself up for success daily. When I started working out earlier in the day, I realized that my mornings were full of decisions — choosing an outfit, picking what type of exercise to do, deciding to work out from home or go to the gym. This left me feeling so overwhelmed that some days, I would give up before I even started.

A friend of mine, who works in consulting and trains as a powerlifter, gave me some helpful advice: On Sunday before the week starts, plan out everything you want to accomplish in the mornings, estimate how long each task takes, and then work backwards to determine what you need to do the night before and what time you need to wake up.

When I did the math, I realized I needed about two hours to get everything done in the morning, which meant I needed to be awake by 6 am and asleep by 10 pm. At the time, I had been going to bed around 11:30 pm, which explained my morning grogginess.

If you, like me, are looking to make adjustments to your sleep routine, Rafael Pelayo, MD, clinical professor at the Stanford Sleep Disorders Clinic and the Stanford University School of Medicine in California, recommends doing so in no more than 15-minute increments every few days.

Ease into the morning.

I used to believe that early morning workouts had to be an intense start to the day — wake up to a loud alarm, jump out of bed, and blast music at the gym. But even when I get a good night’s sleep, I don’t wake up with boundless energy, and an intense morning often leaves me more stressed than energized.

Research shows that stress impairs our efforts to be physically active, so I began looking for better ways to ease into the day. To eliminate my morning decision fatigue, I started assembling everything I needed for the workout (and after the workout) the night before. I put aside my exercise clothes and equipment, prepped my post-workout breakfast and coffee, and hung up my work outfit.

For a calmer wake-up call, I swapped my phone alarm out for a light-based alarm clock, which can improve sleep quality and make waking up a bit gentler. Finally, while sipping my coffee, I sat quietly, closed my eyes, and imagined the best morning workout possible. Performance coach Barbara Cox, PhD says this visualization technique helps people “feel” a sense of accomplishment and can even increase motivation.

Make your workout work for you.

If sticking to your workout routine continues to be a challenge despite your best efforts, it may be time to reevaluate the types of exercise you’re doing.

Ask yourself: “Do my workouts work for me?” When I first asked myself this question, I was lifting heavy weights at the gym every day. Upon reflection, I realized that this activity didn’t make sense for me anymore — I had different goals. I wanted to get outside more by jogging at my local park, I wanted to feel more flexible with a consistent yoga practice, and I wanted to ditch the dumbbells with more bodyweight movements at home.

If you find yourself struggling to get active in the morning, consider the types of movements and environments that work for your needs. Maybe you’ve been exercising alone for a while and want to join a friend. Perhaps you’ve grown bored with your gym routine and want to try a challenging class instead. Or you may discover you want to learn a new sport, like dancing or boxing.

The important thing is to find something you enjoy doing and will look forward to getting out of bed for every morning.

Reward yourself right away.

You’ve probably heard this tip before — we all know how important rewards are to increasing motivation and maintaining habits. But odds are, your reward system could use an upgrade.

The challenge with most rewards from exercise is they take a long time to come to fruition. But according to James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, the more immediate the reward, the stickier the habit. And according to research from Alison Phillips, associate professor of psychology and director of the Healthy Habits Lab at Iowa State University, the more intrinsic the reward, the more automatic a workout routine will become.

I used to think about rewards much differently. For instance, I would keep a tab open on my phone of an outfit that I was going to buy if I reached a certain weight. I’d look at it whenever I didn’t feel like working out to try and motivate myself. I also tried other methods — after a week of working out every day, I would reward myself with a day of eating whatever I wanted. I usually overate on those days and felt bloated and physically uncomfortable.

The problem with these approaches? They’re ultimately rooted in a toxic understanding of what it means to “be healthy” or “look healthy,” an attitude that’s been passed down through generations and is primarily driven by the media. A “healthy body” can take many different forms. The level of discipline I was practicing felt unbalanced and driven by self-criticism. I started associating working out with negative feelings.

To break out of these thought patterns, I needed to identify the immediate, intrinsic rewards of my morning workouts. I started by identifying what working out meant for me before and after I exercised. I thought, “I’m always more relaxed after exercising. I like feeling strong when I work out. My brain is sharper when I run in the morning.” Then, as I was showering after my workout, I thought about how I was feeling: Peaceful, happy, energized.

Phillips says taking moments like these can help us associate exercise with feeling good, which is necessary for making it a routine. “If you don’t feel better or enjoy exercising, you’re going to do something else when forced to make a decision,” Phillips added.

To help you identify the rewards that work for you, ask yourself: How does working out make me feel? How do I feel when I skip a workout? Write down your answers so you can return to them when you need some motivation.

Take a long view.

As you adjust to new habits, you may face setbacks along the way, so it’s important to practice patience and compassion. Expecting results right away is a recipe for disaster. Small failures when you first start can lead you to get discouraged and stop trying.

Though a consistent schedule can help you establish a habit of working out, you don’t need to run a mile or go to the gym every single morning. Too much of anything can be bad for your health, including exercise. That’s why rest days are important. On mine, I like to use the extra time in the morning to read and prepare a delicious breakfast. Consider how you might spend your non-workout mornings doing something you enjoy.

When it comes to health, it’s important to take a long view. Before you berate yourself for missing a workout (or even several), step back and think about your movement in the past month, not just the past week. If most of your days include some level of physical activity, you’re on the right track.