New Study: This Makes People Exercise More

Have you ever noticed that although most people know that getting regular exercise is good for them, VERY few people actually do it?  There could be many different reasons for this but very often it is simply just a lack of motivation.       

Why am I bringing this up? 

Because a new study was released this month that reveals an interesting way people are becoming motivated to be more physically active.  The University of South Australia reviewed almost 400 studies involving over 164,000 people, and they found that Wearable Activity Trackers (WAT’s) helped people increase their daily walking by 1800 steps (or about 40 minutes) on average.   

Read more about that by clicking here- WAT’s Make People Want to Exercise More 

This is great news because it has been shown for years that increasing your daily step count is hugely beneficial for health.  In fact, the National Institutes of Health even published a study several years ago that found that increasing steps by just several thousand daily can give you an enormous reduction in your risk of premature death.   

Read about that here- More Steps = Longer Life 

So why are WAT’s so effective at helping people increase activity?  In order to better understand that, we need to look at what motivation actually is.  According to Psychology, motivation is defined as “the desire to act in service of a goal.” Within that definition are 2 keys to improving motivation that WAT’s help people with.   1) We must have a clear goal. 2) We must have some idea what we can do to “serve” that goal.  

Now, although most people over a certain age would say they have a “goal” of having better physical and mental health, better fitness, more energy and longer life, very few have daily goals to help them get there.  WAT’s offer these people a simple goal each day- “x” number of steps.  To service this goal, all one must do is get up and walk.  With each successive step, you can see your step count going up in real time so the desire to reach this goal often comes from the immediate gratification the user gets from the WAT.   

People not only have the daily confidence boost of having hit their goal (which makes them want to hit it the next day too), but they also have the immediate energy and mood boost from getting more blood and oxygen to their body and brain, which helps keep them motivated also. 

So, if you are someone who would say that you have a goal of improving physical or mental health, or increasing energy and lifespan, get yourself a WAT and start tracking your steps. As time goes on, try and get more and more steps until you reach 10-12,000.  As you can tell, I think you’ll be glad you did for all kinds of reasons. 

Blessings,

Chris