A team of researchers has explored the exercise paradox, the feeling of wanting to become more physically active, but despite our best intentions, we finally realize that what we do achieve is being even less active. Why does this happen?
If getting to the gym seems like a struggle, a researcher at the University of British Columbia (Canada) wants us to know this: the struggle is real and it happens inside our brain.
The brain is where Matthieu Boisgontier and other researchers went looking for answers to what we call the “ exercise paradox “: For decades, society has encouraged people to be more physically active, yet statistics show that despite of our best intentions, the result is rather the opposite.
The research findings, published recently in the journal Neuropsychologia, suggest that our brains may be primed to prefer lying on the couch than exercising.
“Energy conservation has been essential to the survival of humans, allowing us to be more efficient in finding food and shelter, competing for sexual partners and avoiding predators,” said Boisgontier, lead author of the study. “ The failure of public policies to counteract the pandemic of physical inactivity may be due to brain processes that have developed and strengthened throughout evolution .”
For the study, the researchers recruited young adults, seated them in front of a computer, and gave them control of an avatar on the screen. They then showed small pictures, one at a time, showing physical activity or physical inactivity. The subjects had to move the avatar as quickly as possible towards the physical activity images and away from the physical inactivity images, and vice versa.
Meanwhile, a set of electrodes recorded everything that was happening in their brains. In general, participants were quicker to move toward active images and away from inactive ones, but brain activity readings – EEGs – showed that doing the latter required their brains to work much harder.
“We knew from previous studies that people are quicker to avoid sedentary behaviors and move toward active behaviors. The exciting novelty of our study is that it shows that this faster avoidance of physical inactivity comes at a cost , and is matched by greater participation. of brain resources, “Boisgontier said. “These results suggest that our brain is innately attracted to sedentary behaviors.”
The question now is whether human brains can be retrained.
“Everything that happens automatically is difficult to inhibit, even if we want to, because you don’t know what is happening. But knowing that it is happening is an important first step,” concluded Boisgontier.
So now you know, every time you wonder why you have such a hard time going to the gym, remember that it is your brain that has a preference for that corner of the sofa.
Reference: “Avoiding sedentary behaviors requires more cortical resources than avoiding physical activity: An EEG study” by Boris Cheval, Eda Tipura, Nicolas Burra, Jaromil Frossard, Julien Chanal, Dan Orsholits, Rémi Radel, and Matthieu P. Boisgontierhi in Neuropsychologia . Published 2018. doi: 10.1016 / j.neuropsychologia.2018.07.029
