Coping, Exercise

Motivating Yourself to Exercise

Even if you swear off New Year’s resolutions, thoughts of exercising may still nag at you. Not only because it is something everyone should do, but because it’s a vital component to managing migraine and CDH.

Feeling terrible is an obvious roadblock, but motivation can hinder you more. ExerciseFriends may help you overcome this obstacle. The free site helps you find people to exercise with in your neighborhood or you can simply chat with others online. The partner search includes profiles and ages of possible buddies. You can narrow your search to males only, females only or both.

Making a commitment to exercise with others is almost impossible for me. I have to cancel more often than not, so the forums seem to be a better option. My best motivation was when I checked in with a friend who I talked to almost every day.

We don’t talk as much anymore, so ExerciseFriends may be another place to say, “Yes, I exercised today. I met my goal of walking X miles.” The current posts don’t really lend themselves to this, but starting a daily role call type thread would serve the purpose. Even if no one else posts to it, the public reporting can kick you into gear. In fact, whenever I convince myself to walk next, I’ll start a thread on the support forum.