Can exercise awakens joy and if I can’t throw it away, Marie Kondo style? I write this from my traditional position: ball hunched over, static, like a gargoyle (expression and posture). as one of the 47% of British women who haven’t done any vigorous exercise in the past year, I barely move. It’s gotten worse recently: dog is too old for long walks, pilates is too far away, which means I’m paying £35 a month just to feel guilty, and I’m too busy, ok? (If you could get your heart rate up with defensiveness and excuses, that would be fine.) The last six months have been the least physically active since I had glandular fever at 19, a time I remember with nostalgic longing: sleep for 14 hours, read for 10 minutes, snack, then go back to sleep.
I feel bad: stiff, sore and sleepless. But is it because sitting in front of a laptop for 12 hours a day and then moving to the couch to look at a bigger screen is objectively bad for me, or because I’m culturally conditioned to believe it’s bad? Well, it’s the first, but the peer pressure is also crushing. All the middle-aged women in the media he’s got chiseled delts, a six-pack, and a story about how happy being defined made them. I’m thrilled that collectively we’ll soon be able to literally crush the patriarchy, but I’m definitely not pulling (lifting) my weight.
I need to move this tired piece of meat, but I’ve never found the exercise really pleasurable, so I’ve been watching all eight and a half minutes. joy training. A little joy would be nice: simple, healthy Freudeinstead of the Shaden variety, which seems to be the only one on British shelves at the moment. Also, no one is so busy that they can’t put in eight and a half minutes; I spent more time looking at the Daily Star lettuce last week.
Designed by health psychologist Kelly McGonigal, the workout combines movements shown to elicit positive emotions and are recognizably joyous, cross-culturally, and set to a soundtrack “aimed at enhancing positive emotions.” There is a video to follow, in seven thematic sections. I tried it out and present my findings in case you too are looking for joy through (manageably brief) movement.
Starting the Scope section, I realize I was hoping it would be less…exercise? Reaching is hell on my tense shoulders. Sway, a gently expansive side-to-side motion, makes me look like one of my aunts at a wedding before Come on Eileen begins; I walk away from the window. “How would it feel for her to throw her fists in the air?” The rebound asks the section, to which the answer is “terrible.” Shake is a moment of respite, but it takes me six seconds of Jump to hiss, “I hate this.” And when the cheery voiceover suggests I “try some jumping,” I prefer a wounded rhino bellow of anguish. Celebrating is supposed to look like throwing confetti; here it sounds like a wake of crackles and pops for my spine.
The final section, Freestyle, invites you to improvise, which I do with all the loose, rhythmic abandon of one of those heavily cloaked priests at the Queen’s funeral. Then I realize I have a new spam email: I check it, swear, then sit back and start working again. That’s why I can’t have nice things, like working shoulders.
I’m not sure you can generate much joy by following a special exercise recipe. It seems that it tends to appear when you don’t expect it. The closest I come right now is riding a bike. I’ve never had the balance or the guts to ride a bike, but this year I took a beginner’s course and with encouragement, kindness, and the occasional push, something clicked. Now I look for excuses to ride my bike through quiet streets and bike paths, feeling fast (for me, children and very old people still overtake me) and free. Sometimes, on my bike, I am momentarily consumed by childish joy: the rush of air, the joy, the feeling that being alive is incredible, really. Is that what fitness freaks talk about? I guess that could catch up.
