Same goes for meditation. People will say they don't have time to sit for ten minutes a day. The longer you sit, the more time you seem to have. A paradox.

"You should sit in meditation for twenty minutes everyday - unless you're too busy; then you should sit for an hour." - Dr. Sukhraj Dhillon

I read Altered Traits at the behest of someone here. All I got of it was "I studied meditation for months to reduce my blood pressure, it didn't do anything, so I took some pills, and that was great, but you should meditate."

It seems that all evidence toward any purported positive effects of meditation is extremely speculative, other than "willpower gains" as preached by Kelly McGonigal. The thing is, those can come from focusing on something useful or cardio too.

I can recommend The Mind Illuminated by culadasa. He has a PHD in neuroscience and gives you a very comprehensive framework of how the mind works (with focus on attention) and what kind of improvements meditation brings.

The truth is we just don’t want to exercise, and all the other things that we would rather do, including productive things that we really do need to do, therefore push the exercise to the side.

Even though we know in the abstract that exercise will make our time more effective, we let ourselves be persuaded that we don’t have time because we enjoy working out mentally more than working out physically.

I'm the complete opposite in this regard. I currently spend 2 hours a day training for boxing, spend time on weekends mountain biking and wish there was more time! At some point I'll be financial independent where I will be able to devote even more time.

With that being said, would it help people to view exercise as play time? If you go play basketball with a group of guys, are you exercising or playing? For me it doesn't matter, I'm going to be out there either way but for others would the mental shift make a difference?

finding a sport/activity that you enjoy is a great way to shift exercise from the work category to the fun category. I had some success on this front with indoor climbing pre-pandemic. unfortunately, my gym now has a ton of restrictions that make it much less convenient to use, so I'm afraid I haven't gone back yet.

I don't think sports can fully substitute for a deliberate workout regimen though. with the possible exception of swimming, I don't think there are any sports that really give a full-body workout.

As children we didn't focus on a full-body workout. Though most children, at least when I was growing in up in the 90s are in far better shape than most adults. Sure a 12 kid couldn't help move an oak dresser but they are better overall physical shape. If adults were just active playing sports, I'd suspect obesity and related health issues to decrease with mental health improving.

I know there are many here on HN that will loathe the idea of playing sports.

> If adults were just active playing sports, I'd suspect obesity and related health issues to decrease with mental health improving.

I don't disagree. whatever form it takes, some exercise is better than no exercise. there is some risk in developing certain muscle groups while neglecting others though. you can injure the weakest link doing something you simply wouldn't attempt if all your muscles were equally weak.

Probably this is really it, I would just rather spend my play time futzing with code on a computer.

VR Workouts have unlocked this for me.

I'm pretty sedentary but playing beat saber for 1 hour is a lot more moving than I'm used to.

Deadlines stress me out and I dread impending failures, and I have a very broad definition of failure. I would definitely feel harried. Am I being limited by worries? Are you having some misses in targets here and there but you're trucking right along, or are you really good at meeting what sounds like many many targets?

Maybe this will help. It's a TED Talk entitled "How to make stress your friend":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcGyVTAoXEU

I miss many targets and it's amazing how little it matters. The key is creating space to be truly passionate about something, that ends up protecting you and sustaining you