Making sure your people are taken care of: Induced exercise part 16.

(Parts 1 2 3 4 5 6  7  8  9  10 11  12 13  14 15)

Most people know that a workout plan has to include a time, a place, and an activity.  Usually the question "but where are your kids?" is kind of rolled into those three, assuming you'll mentally calculate times, places, and activities that make room for them.  I want to pull it out separately and give it equal attention.

I don't want to focus on the minutiae of leaving children in gym childcare facilities (though that is worth a post) or having your spouse care for them while you exercise or asking a friend to watch for a little while.  I want to focus on, well, focus.    If you struggle with boredom and distraction during exercise, or if you feel that the activities you're constrained to choose are drudgery, then the solution is to find a way to experience psychological flow; and to do so requires concentration, plus the perception that without concentration, you'll not meet your goal.

Psychological flow is its own reward:  

"The best moments usually occur when a person's body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile.  Optimal experience is something that we make happen.  For a child , it could be placing with trembling fingers the last block on a tower she has built, higher than any she has built so far; for a swimmer, it could be trying to beat his own record; for a violinist, mastering an intricate musical passage.  For each person there are thousands of opportunities, challenges to expand ourselves."  (From Flow:  The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Czikszentmihalyi)

But flow requires concentration, and if the activity doesn't inherently require concentration, then achieving flow requires willfully creating a context of concentration:

"Flow experiences based on the use of physical skills do not occur only in the context of outstanding physical feats... Every person, no matter how unfit he or she is, can rise a little higher, go a little faster, and grow to be a little stronger.  The joy of surpassing the limits of the body is open to all.

"Even the simplest physical act becomes enjoyable when it is transformed so as to produce flow.  The essential steps in this process are:  (a) to set an overall goal, and as many subgoals as are realistically feasible; (b) to find ways of measuring progress in terms of the goals chosen; (c) to keep concentrating on what one is doing, and to keep making finer and finer distinctions in the challenges involved in the activity; (d) to develop the skills necessary to interact with the opportunities available; and (e) to keep raising the stakes if the activity becomes boring."

Czikszentmihalyi proposes the act of walking as an example of a simple activity that can be transformed into a flow activity by the setting of goals that require concentration.  I propose, maybe a bit optimistically, that walking on a treadmill or doing yoga at home in your living room can also be transformed into a flow activity, with some forethought and planning and goal-setting     and the opportunity to concentrate.    I believe habitual experience of flow is the difference between many people who love exercise, and are drawn back to it by desire, and people who hate it, avoid it, or do it only with a sense of duty.   Flow bestows a sense of meaning, purpose, competence, and (yes) fun on the most prosaic of activities (I used to get it from writing computer code!).  You deserve to be able to achieve it.

And this is why I believe it's crucial (if you're to become someone who enjoys exercise) to make sure your people --- your children or anyone else you're responsible for --- are completely taken care of while you are getting your exercise.  

You can't achieve flow without focus.  You can, of course, exercise without focus and do without flow.  But why would you, if you can find a way to get it?

For most people, total focus on the activity at the same time as being responsible for small children is either (a) impossible, because part of the attention is always on the children---listening for sounds of distress or wakefulness, or watching out of the corner of the eye; or (b) dangerous, because none of your attention is focused on the children.

It should be obvious by now that I'm speaking to people who try to get their exercise at home, while they are alone in the house with the children; or who hope that they can get it with their kids by their side.  I am arguing that to settle for this is to deny yourself the benefits of flow.  Only if somebody else can respond to all your small children's concerns short of real emergencies, are you free to concentrate enough to achieve it.

Achieving flow through exercise with children younger than 3 or older than 10 is, I think, workable.  One can run with a jogging stroller, or walk briskly with a baby in a backpack; and a 10-year-old can be a real workout partner, if she wants it as much as you do!  

But those 3 through 9 year olds... They are too big to carry, and they are not big enough to keep up with many adults who are really exerting themselves.  They also are not usually big enough to be completely responsible for themselves, or to be completely responsible for younger siblings.  Hannah and I tried to brainstorm  ways to get real vigorous exercise with a passel of mid-sized kids, and the only thing we could come up with is running around playing chasing games in a big yard or field---though even that can end in tears before you really want to be done.

So this post is a sort of appeal:  Even if you are sure that you can only exercise at home anyway, still, try not to settle for exercising while you're the only responsible person around.  Naps and videos are simply not reliable enough.  Exercise in the morning or evening or lunch hour while your spouse is home, and instruct the kids to take their concerns to him.  Arrange to take turns with another mother.  Hire a mother's helper.  Begin training an older child how to be responsible for ninety percent of their younger siblings' needs for fifteen minutes or half an hour, and how to tell when it's time to call Mom.

Give yourself a chance to know that your people are taken care of for the block of time you've allowed, be it five minutes daily or a big block of time twice a week.  Give yourself the freedom to lose yourself in body motion, to experience a sense of competence and challenge.  It may be difficult to arrange if you're "just" following videos on the floor of your living room; but the first step to making it possible is giving yourself the gift of concentration.

Next up:  How to make a backup plan!

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Note:  Two books by Czikszentmihalyi are available in "limited preview" on Google Books.  One is Optimal Experience:  Psychological Studies of Flow in Consciousness and the other is Finding Flow:  The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life.  I haven't read either of these yet, but maybe they will give you a taste of the material.

Comments

[mrsdarwin]

How's this for breaking the flow: yesterday I was five seconds into an exercise I had to hold for ninety seconds, and the baby works loose the tray of his swing and throws himself on the floor. Fortunately it was the last exercise in the workout anyway, since he had to nurse angrily for several moments.