LACK OF TIME?

A disagreeable yet reality-based take...

Most people understand the term “barriers to exercise” to mean things that stop them exercising, or at least make it very difficult. After all, a barrier is something that is in the way. But sometimes the real barriers are not the ones we think they are.

If I now say the word “choice”, you may wonder how that is related to the idea of barriers. If we have a choice, it means there are multiple options available to us and we have the agency to pick, whereas when dealing with barriers it often feels like we have limited control. However, while we may not always have a desirable range of options available to us, we have more agency in our lives than we often realise, because we are making choices constantly.

This post is about one of the most frequently cited “barriers” to exercise - lack of time. Although to say one struggles to exercise because of “lack of time” doesn’t mean much without including some additional information. A more accurate statement would be “lack of time given other commitments.” When we say we do not have time to do something, it is because we have made a choice to engage in other activities, which then does not leave us what we perceive as enough time to do something like exercise. Those may be very carefully thought-through and deliberate choices, or they may be rather habitual patterns we have fallen into.

You may well say to this: “but there are things I have to do like work/look after the kids/XYZ, that’s not a choice.” But actually it is - “have to” only exists in the context of some kind of contingency - “I have to OR….” You are still making a choice based on the available consequences.

For example, most people choose to work because they value housing and feeding themselves and their family. Now, the consequences of choosing otherwise are considerably undesirable to most, therefore working seems the obvious option. It certainly doesn’t feel like much of a choice - in fact that idea might feel like a mick-take. But it is still a choice - you decided it was the best option given your most important needs and wants.

So when we say we don’t have time to exercise, what that really means is that we have chosen to use that time to support alternative OR higher needs. You might wonder “why the semantics?” There are several reasons why highlighting choice is important.

1) Recognising the value or lack thereof in what we do

When we have made choices that are deeply important to us (e.g. working to earn money, spending time looking after our children) and limit our available time for other activities, it is helpful to recognise that and accept them as good decisions.

Why? Because it puts them in a more helpful context, which is doing the best you can given the choices you currently have available. You might be unhappy with the range of choices available to you and perhaps you are looking to change your situation in the long-term. But the reality is that we are constantly faced with limitations and tensions in life, and our understandable tendency to lament them and the restrictions they impose on us means we forget that we are still making values-based decisions. If we can connect more consciously with the value in the other priorities and activities we have, it becomes less of an internal conflict.

On the contrary, you might reflect on all of this only to realise that actually you aren’t always in fact prioritising your time in a values-based manner. Maybe you notice that there are hours in the week that you use to do things you value less than exercise, for instance scrolling on social media for an hour of an evening, or saying “yes” too often to extra work tasks. Recognising where we are using our time in ways that don’t feel meaningful or optimal then provides us with the impetus to make some changes.

Image from Natalia Blauth, Unsplash

2) Reflecting on & using our time more wisely

Once we have recognised where we are engaging in valued decision-making (or not), it is then easier to accept our available time for what it is, or to clarify where time can be freed up, and then make more informed decisions about how best to use that time.

First, in accepting the reality of our time we can consider whether the routine or activity we are aiming for is actually feasible. This is particularly helpful to reflect on if you find yourself frequently struggling to fit your “ideal” form of exercise in. Sometimes we can keep ourselves in a cycle of not exercising at all because we are trying to fit something in that we simply don’t have capacity for, which ironically stops us doing any or at least means we do things sporadically.

Instead, by coming to terms with the reality that you are making the best choices you can given your schedule and that you can’t meet the demands you have been imposing on yourself, you can free yourself up to choose a more reality-based exercise routine or activity that actually works. You’d be amazed at how halving your volume or intensity of exercise yet doing it consistently is far more impactful than “ideal” workouts done sporadically. In this way, being honest with yourself about your current realities can reduce the stress around them.

Secondly, we can explore whether some things we regularly do can be done more efficiently, or even integrated with physical activity, which could free up some space. Equally, we might decide that the hours of an evening we spend on social media would be better spent on physical activity, or maybe something entirely different.

3) Understanding the REAL barrier

In reflecting on our available time, we can also explore whether it is actually that we lack time to do the physical activities we want to do, OR that our schedule leaves us in psychological or physical states that make it challenging to use the time for exercise.

For instance, if you have a very busy schedule it’s likely that it impacts your levels of fatigue and stress to some degree as well as emotions. Stress can leave you with a warped perception of time - for instance, many people attempt to get up early in the morning to get their exercise in before the day starts, knowing there genuinely is a spare hour or two there. However for some there is a real sense of time pressure because of impending daily tasks. They feel they have to rush even if that isn’t generally true. This impacts the experience of the activity and over time it becomes associated with stress, making it somewhat unattractive compared to other options (e.g. staying in bed, having a slower morning).

Alternatively some people aim for evening or lunchtime workouts, but by the time they arrive at that point they have experienced a half or entire day of decision-making, problem-solving, planning, reflecting, communicating and concentrating, not to mention any emotions that might come with their various activities. Consequently their sense of mental and physical energy can feel somewhat depleted, and they might also be left in a negative mood. What this then means is that motives surrounding rest and recovery will be activated, both of which might directly conflict with motives for exercise. Equally, being in a negative mood for some people triggers the desire for affective compensation, i.e. generation of positive mood to balance out the negative. This means we’re much more likely to be oriented towards doing something that cheers us up, comforts us or helps us relax. If exercise doesn’t tick these boxes, it is going to feel a lot harder to initiate.

Thus the barrier isn’t always just the time available, but also the resulting presence of conflicting unmet needs and motives that start to tap on your shoulder at an increasingly urgent rate.

I mentioned the existential ideas of limitations and tensions earlier, and here would be a good time to ask: where is the genuine limitation or tension, and is it a limitation or a tension? In some of the cases described in this section, the struggle to “fit exercise in” can be addressed via understanding where tensions exist between exercise motives and other motives, and looking to reduce psychological resistance by addressing those motives differently or adapting exercise motives. However, in other cases that’s going to be very hard work, and one is better off looking at where there are simple limitations, and what can be done practically to lift them or accept them and work around them.

Take perspective

You may be surprised to hear this from an exercise psychologist, but I will finish by emphasising that there really is no need for an intense or “optimised” exercise routine in life. If your goal is to support your health and longevity, that requires surprisingly little - all it needs to be is relatively consistent. Of course there is an “optimal” amount of both cardiovascular and resistance exercise for minimising risks and maximising longevity, but here we bump up against another existential reality - life often does not allow for things to be perfect. Equally, there are other important influences on our health such as stress levels, the quality of our relationships, our environments and a sense of purpose that you may choose to prioritise in ways that do not involve exercise. We have to decide what we are going to optimise and at what cost. Everything is a trade-off.

Of course if you find a particular kind of exercise does a lot more for you than the physical - mental well-being, a deep sense of purpose and satisfaction, connection with like-minded others - it probably is worth putting in the effort to find a way to fit it into your schedule. Either way, from my perspective the most important thing is to take a step back and evaluate how you are choosing to spend your time given what is available to you, and whether you feel that is the most meaningful way you can live your life right now.

Chloe

Psychology of Movement