Voices
of physical well-being, with their
bright lights, loud thumping music,
uncomfortable furniture and machines that seem to have been designed by sadists, and populated by
people who often seem miserable,
joylessly going through the strenuous motions so they can check off
the exercise box on that day’s to-do
list and get the heck out of there.
There’s a reason we call it “working
out” as opposed to “playing out.”
And those are the ones motivated enough to actually drag
themselves in. A large portion of
health club members, even those
paying hefty monthly fees, don’t
go. As Daniel Duane pointed out
in Men’s Journal, in order to make
money, health clubs and gyms
need to have around 10 times as
many members as they’re designed to accommodate.
But does it have to be like this?
Does going to the gym have to be
something to be endured?
After all, we know that physical
activity is an incredibly powerful
component of our overall well-being. Every day brings more evidence
of the depth of the connection. For
instance, one study out of Southern
Methodist University found that
the effects of physical activity on
mild to moderate depression were
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so powerful that the study’s author,
Jasper Smits, wrote a guidebook
urging mental health professionals to actually prescribe exercise as
a medical intervention. There are
also studies showing how regular
physical activity increases cognitive
function and brain connectivity.
And, conversely, we also know how
bad for us a lack of physical activity
can be. According to an American
Cancer Society study, people with
A person watching her
own screen while walking
on a treadmill next to another
person watching another
screen while walking on a
treadmill is like a metaphor
for our modern life.”
a sitting job are more likely to develop cardiovascular disease than
those with standing jobs. This is
not a new discovery. A 1950s study
of people in similar lines of work
showed that London bus drivers
had a higher incidence of death
from cardiovascular disease than
bus conductors, and that government clerks had a higher incidence
than postal workers.
The benefits of making our bod-