Are our brains trying to stop us from exercising?
The "exercise paradox" describes the conflicting urge within modern society to go to the gym, work out, and be more healthy, while simultaneously avoiding engaging in those very activities.
A new study published in the journal Neuropsychologia examines this paradox and what role our brains may play in maintaining it.
The American Heart Association (AHA) state that we only need 150 minutes of moderate exercise or 75 minutes of vigorous exercise each week to improve health.
However, in June, National Health Statistics Reports revealed that 77 percent of Americans are still not meeting even this weekly exercise requirement.
Why do we avoid exercise?
In an attempt to answer the question of why we stubbornly avoid exercise despite knowing that it is essential for our health, Matthieu Boisgontier — a postdoctoral researcher at the University of British Columbia's Brain Behaviour Lab — recruited 29 young people to take part in a study.
In Boisgontier's experiment, the participants controlled an onscreen avatar while electrodes registered their brain activity. Images representing either physical activity or physical inactivity would flash briefly on the screen.
The participants were required to move their avatars as quickly as they could toward the physical activity-related images and away from the inactivity-related images in one test, and the opposite way around in another.
'More brainpower to reject inactive images'
Analyzing the data, the team found that the participants moved their avatars more quickly toward the physical activity images and away from the physical inactivity images than the other way round.
However, the brain-activity recordings — called electroencephalograms — demonstrated that participants expended significantly more brainpower when attempting to move their avatars away from the physical inactivity images than when they were required to move toward them.
"We knew from previous studies that people are faster at avoiding sedentary behaviours and moving toward active behaviours," Boisgontier explains.
"The exciting novelty of our study is that it shows this faster avoidance of physical inactivity comes at a cost — and that is an increased involvement of brain resources. These results suggest that our brain is innately attracted to sedentary behaviours," he adds.
He also notes that saving energy "has been essential for humans' survival, as it allowed us to be more efficient in searching for food and shelter, competing for sexual partners, and avoiding predators."
"The failure of public policies to counteract the pandemic of physical inactivity may be due to brain processes that have been developed and reinforced across evolution."
