MUSIC - A Motivational Hack for Exercising Well

As working people, when do we get to listen to music? Either in the car or at home while relaxing during our precious family time or #ME-Time. Think of “exercise time” as “Music time” and that will give you at least one hour daily of music that does not encroach into other invaluable time.

There have been many research articles on how music helps you exercise better. The theories proposed for this include - music helps you take attention away from exercise, music enables you to keep to the beat, music improves concentration, music makes you feel good and happy and thus improves your performance and so on.

During my fitness journey I discovered the main reason why music helps you exercise better. During exercise, the brain gets two main stimuli that tell the body is tiring which prompts it to send signals to stop exercising. First, the feeling of fatigue and muscle tiredness which kickstarts and increases after starting to exercise. The second and more important stimulus is that of the sound of your gasping or heavy breathing. Just imagine how demotivating it can be to hear yourself gasping for air – and you will appreciate how the brain perceives this and tells you to stop. If you can eliminate this stimulus of gasping, you can fool the brain into thinking you are not yet tired and this will enable you to exercise longer.

Music can be used to drown out the sound of your breathing. I actually experimented on myself and found out that my endurance levels were lowest without music. I seemed to feel tired much earlier and tended to stop exercising. As I gradually increased the volume of music, my endurance levels increased proportionately. I could do the maximum exercise if the music volume was loud enough to drown out the sound of my gasping.

This theory has not been described anywhere in any articles on how music helps you exercise better. Invest in some good headphones and convert your “exercise time” into your “music time! Remember, do not increase the music volume too much but just enough to drown out your gasping sounds. Else you may end up permanently damaging your hearing.