I Hear Voices

I hear voices. All. The. Time. These voices are always kind, always sympathetic, but most of all they are loud. My friend Amy calls it “the nice lady,” but I think about the voice more like a kindly
grandparent who not just understands excuses but actively supplies excuses. “Why don’t you check your phone, dear?” “You look tired, you should lay down on the couch.” “You haven’t eaten yet, have breakfast/lunch/dinner/ice cream…” The voices don’t like discomfort and will give me all the reasons why not to. The constant mantra of these voices is LATER. My guess is
you hear it too.

Human brains are magnificent! They do so many wonderful, incredible, complex functions, and are highly evolved. One of the many things that they have evolved to do is conserve energy.
Our bodies need energy in the form of glucose to keep our heart beating, our lungs sucking in breath, our digestive system plugging along, these are the basic things that keep us alive even
before we start propelling our body through space. Brains however, are the biggest energy hog of them all taking up half of the sugar energy in the body (just ask the Harvard University Department of Neurobiology which is where I sourced my highly specific number.) It is literally self-preservation that brains have evolved to conserve energy. Brains have a vested self interest in saving as much energy as possible.

So who can blame a brain for asking for more food, rest, and screen time? That voice is biology, my friend. The voice of self-preservation from a bygone era. That voice thinks it may need energy for later, which is its favorite word. Later.

Well, there’s a problem with that, you’re more than a brain in a jar on a shelf. That gorgeous brain of yours needs a body to carry it around, and back in the day (like waaaaay back in the day) the body would have to carry the brain around to find more food for energy & run away from danger. That’s still the body’s function, but now we drive our car to the grocery store where the nice teenager throws your online order into the trunk that can pop in the microwave at mealtime. Better yet, we order off of grub hub & never have to leave the couch! As far as running away from danger? Mine consists of running to get Troy to smoosh the spider.

We can talk about all the cardiovascular, strength, bone density, balance, quality of life reasons we need to exercise later. For right now let’s just talk about that liar “The Voice”. Its main
concern is to keep you from starting which is why it keeps telling you later. Try subverting the voice by lying back to it. Say to your brain “5 minutes”. “I’m just going to work out for 5 minutes.” “I’m just going to do the warm up, nothing strenuous, just a warm up.” “5 minutes, I can walk/run/cycle/lift for 5 minutes and then I can stop.” I’ve heard people say “just put your shoes on.” Well I can put my shoes on & wear them all day without doing my training, BUT, if I start by promising myself “just 5 minutes, just the warm up,” I’ll get it done. I can think of two times in the last 10 years I’ve quit after just 5 minutes. Most times I’ll think that I can keep going, maybe just to 10 minutes, maybe I have 15 minutes in me, one more set, one more circuit…

Don’t be ashamed of procrastination, it’s basic brain self-preservation. It’s evolution. That doesn’t mean you have to listen to that loud voice. If you tune it out, there’s a quieter voice underneath that says “5 minutes, I can do this for 5 minutes,” then you’re well on your way.