Wellness Journalism: Exercise Your Right to Well-Being

This month, we are talking about Physical Wellness with a focus on exercise. Let's see...

The concept of exercise is often entangled with looking good: in other words, image and ego. You’re grinding away on the treadmill because otherwise you won’t fit into skinny jeans. Maybe you’re toned, with flat tummy and round butt. But eat a donut or skip the gym for a week, and you feel fat, lazy, and unmotivated. Then guilt, or fear, pulls your Reeboks on. This is not Wellness.

Likewise, you grind away on the treadmill while your mind grinds away on the meeting with the boss, the messy house, that unfinished project, or how good the girl on the treadmill next to you looks in spandex. There is no connection between the brain and the body. You’re tuned out, and still stressing the world, reduced to a machine. This is not Wellness.

The hallmark of Physical Well-Being is an authentic, joyful, in-the-moment connection to your body. As opposed to being focused on how the body looks, it is central to how the body feels.

Think of exercise, then, as movement; every body wants to move. Delight in your corporeal self! Find something that feels good, that you truly enjoy, that engages your mind and makes it want to pay attention to what your body is doing. Strengthening the mind-body connection is a primary goal of Physical Wellness, because when these lines of communication are open, optimal health follows naturally. The fact that you fit into your jeans is secondary, a happy side-effect.

Now if you are truly inspired by the treadmill, by all means grind away. If not, go out and do something that makes you smile. The recreation organizations here at UCSD will have you frolicking in the ocean, scampering up mountains, practicing tai chi, even dancing salsa. Or get some friends together and form your own club…perhaps an outdoor game team that runs relay races and plays Duck Duck Goose?

Explore. Experiment. Life is a jungle gym unto its very own. Whether you fall in love with Bikram or join a tennis league, strike out for a stroll about the neighborhood or hit the surf, wind up at an outdoor concert happily boogying to the beat of your own drum or race your friend to the car, have an in-body experience.

GET MOVING!