- Body movement clears stress hormones, lifting some of the cloud of fatigue. When you choose to move, you fulfill the physiological requirement of the movement need to defuze the “Fight or Flight” response of stress. In present times, it’s comment that we don’t have a physical fight to tend too or a predator to run from, so, we have to do it ourselves. Choosing to move checks that off the list and brings you back to the calm of rest and relax.
- Firing the nerves off through joint movement and muscle contraction charges the battery in your cortex. When we’re feeling low, it’s hard to energize the oxygen greedy cortext of the brain – the part of our brain that makes us most human and makes awareness, attention and smart choices happen. Nerves coming from our muscle and joint systems travel up the spinal cord and eventually end in our sensory cortex, lighting it up and charging up neighbouring areas making you feel more alert.
- Frankly, exercising when you don’t want to builds character that, on a better day, you’d really intend to build. When it’s hard we build resilience, tenacity, resolve, commitment and other adaptive traits that help us be the person we want to be when our Mom’s not watching.
- I remember in basketball practice when the coach made us do shooting practice after we finished a brutal practice. The idea was to work on our more detail oriented skills (shooting) when we were low on energy and resources. That way, when we were fresh and energized during a big game, shooting would become relatively easy. To the same end, exercises at your worst, makes it way better when you’re fresh. Translate that over to regular life… sometimes when you’re tired, you still need to rally and hit the game winning shot.
- What a great time to find your weaknesses. At the clinic, runners will often tell me that they feel the worst at the end of their run. So, when I meet them when they’re fresh, I have a harder time figuring out what’s wrong. If you pay close attention to yourself during your tired workout, you can find weaknesses – holes in your bucket – that you can fill and improve so you can raise your over all game!