Ready to boost your health and happiness? Make it a habit to engage in physical activity you enjoy most days. Join the fun and feel the difference!
#playspirit365
Embrace the joy of movement! Capture your fun moments in action and share them with #playspirit365
#playspirit365
Embrace the joy of movement! Capture your fun moments in action and share them with #playspirit365
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IGNITE YOUR PLAY SPIRIT
Enjoyment is deeply tied to the intrinsic value of action. When you feel enjoyment, it significantly influences your willingness to persist in an activity. This enjoyment or fun factor serves as a powerful motivator, encouraging you to stay active throughout your life. If you find skiing, running, climbing, or hiking fun, it will fuel a continuous urge to play and be active. This enduring drive is what I call the play spirit. Let's shift our focus from being active for instrumental reasons to valuing the pleasure inherent in the activity. The joy of mastering, knowing, understanding or learning new movements can be pleasurable in itself, igniting your play spirit.
PLAY
THE PLAY SPIRIT FORMULA
Inactivity is a major concern in the 21st century, making this question highly relevant: "How can we increase the urge to stay active?" Enjoyment has a tremendous impact on motivating behavior. When you find an activity enjoyable and fun, it generates intrinsic motivation. Intrinsically motivated, you willingly persist in the activity, even without external rewards. External motivation occurs when you participate in activities to become healthy, look good, receive praise, or avoid negative consequences. When the mindset shifts from enjoyment and play to external rewards, you lose focus on the inherent value of the activity. At what cost?
THE FUN FACTOR - A LITTLE MORE FUN BOOSTS YOUR WILLINGNESS TO PERSIST
When you perceive an activity as more fun, your urge to persist increases exponentially, even if bodily pain (like stiff muscles, a sore knee, or cramps) and mental pain (such as boredom or frustration) remain the same. Enjoying an activity can make the effort involved feel less strenuous, known as the "enjoyment-effort paradox." You might find yourself pushing harder, enduring longer, or exploring more challenging variations without feeling overwhelmed.
THE FORMULA
The fun factor is squared to emphasize the importance of enjoyment in your willingness to engage in the activity.
YOUR PLAY SPIRIT= FUN FACTOR2
BODILY PAIN + MENTAL PAIN
What happens to your play spirit (willingness) to keep going when you participate in an activity because you feel you should, and you do not feel enjoyment (Example 1)? Or because you enjoy it (Example 2)?
To illustrate these examples, we will use numbers between 1-10.
Example 1: Let's say your coach, teacher, or doctor tells you to start doing interval training to improve your endurance and get in shape. You do not like running intervals, so your enjoyment is 1. You have moderate pain in your body because your lungs hurt and moderate mental pain because you are bored.
1/5+5=0.1 Play Spirit
Your play spirit, or urge to keep going in the interval training, is barely above 0. Luckily, you might sustain the activity for a while because it is important to you to become healthier.
Example 2: Someone explained the Play Spirit formula to you, and you decide to choose activities you enjoy. You used to play soccer and love the game. While playing, you might still experience some pain in your body because your lungs hurt and mental pain because you had to spend quite a bit of time getting enough people together to play. However, it is fun to play, and your enjoyment number is 8 (8x8=64).
64/5+5=6.5 Play Spirit
Your play spirit is significantly higher compared to the first example, making it much more likely that you will sustain the activity.
In summary, the importance of enjoyment in physical activity cannot be overstated. It fuels motivation, encourages consistency, reduces the perception of effort, creates positive associations, enhances mental health benefits, and promotes long-term adherence. By finding activities that you genuinely enjoy, you can make physical activity a rewarding and sustainable part of your lifestyle.
Join me on Instagram @heddaberntsendr
Enjoyment is deeply tied to the intrinsic value of action. When you feel enjoyment, it significantly influences your willingness to persist in an activity. This enjoyment or fun factor serves as a powerful motivator, encouraging you to stay active throughout your life. If you find skiing, running, climbing, or hiking fun, it will fuel a continuous urge to play and be active. This enduring drive is what I call the play spirit. Let's shift our focus from being active for instrumental reasons to valuing the pleasure inherent in the activity. The joy of mastering, knowing, understanding or learning new movements can be pleasurable in itself, igniting your play spirit.
PLAY
THE PLAY SPIRIT FORMULA
Inactivity is a major concern in the 21st century, making this question highly relevant: "How can we increase the urge to stay active?" Enjoyment has a tremendous impact on motivating behavior. When you find an activity enjoyable and fun, it generates intrinsic motivation. Intrinsically motivated, you willingly persist in the activity, even without external rewards. External motivation occurs when you participate in activities to become healthy, look good, receive praise, or avoid negative consequences. When the mindset shifts from enjoyment and play to external rewards, you lose focus on the inherent value of the activity. At what cost?
THE FUN FACTOR - A LITTLE MORE FUN BOOSTS YOUR WILLINGNESS TO PERSIST
When you perceive an activity as more fun, your urge to persist increases exponentially, even if bodily pain (like stiff muscles, a sore knee, or cramps) and mental pain (such as boredom or frustration) remain the same. Enjoying an activity can make the effort involved feel less strenuous, known as the "enjoyment-effort paradox." You might find yourself pushing harder, enduring longer, or exploring more challenging variations without feeling overwhelmed.
THE FORMULA
The fun factor is squared to emphasize the importance of enjoyment in your willingness to engage in the activity.
YOUR PLAY SPIRIT= FUN FACTOR2
BODILY PAIN + MENTAL PAIN
What happens to your play spirit (willingness) to keep going when you participate in an activity because you feel you should, and you do not feel enjoyment (Example 1)? Or because you enjoy it (Example 2)?
To illustrate these examples, we will use numbers between 1-10.
Example 1: Let's say your coach, teacher, or doctor tells you to start doing interval training to improve your endurance and get in shape. You do not like running intervals, so your enjoyment is 1. You have moderate pain in your body because your lungs hurt and moderate mental pain because you are bored.
1/5+5=0.1 Play Spirit
Your play spirit, or urge to keep going in the interval training, is barely above 0. Luckily, you might sustain the activity for a while because it is important to you to become healthier.
Example 2: Someone explained the Play Spirit formula to you, and you decide to choose activities you enjoy. You used to play soccer and love the game. While playing, you might still experience some pain in your body because your lungs hurt and mental pain because you had to spend quite a bit of time getting enough people together to play. However, it is fun to play, and your enjoyment number is 8 (8x8=64).
64/5+5=6.5 Play Spirit
Your play spirit is significantly higher compared to the first example, making it much more likely that you will sustain the activity.
In summary, the importance of enjoyment in physical activity cannot be overstated. It fuels motivation, encourages consistency, reduces the perception of effort, creates positive associations, enhances mental health benefits, and promotes long-term adherence. By finding activities that you genuinely enjoy, you can make physical activity a rewarding and sustainable part of your lifestyle.
Join me on Instagram @heddaberntsendr