Get moving
Don't feel like going for walks? These tricks can help
Updated on December 4th, 2024Reading time: 2 minutes
It's gray: it's hard to pull yourself together for a walk around the block or through the park. Here are five motivational tips.
We all know it: exercise is important for us. And it doesn't always have to be strength training in the gym to be good for our health – for example our back. An Australian study shows that walking for 160 minutes a week effectively helps against back pain. The orthopedist Prof. Bernd Kladny draws attention to this.
“You can do it anywhere, it can be easily integrated into everyday life, requires no equipment and doesn't cost any money,” says the deputy secretary general of the German Society for Orthopedics and Trauma Surgery (DGOU). If only it weren't for the motivation thing. Not everyone enjoys walking. Especially if running around outside doesn't have a fixed goal and you don't have a dog that you need to get some fresh air with anyway. Here are some tricks that can motivate those who don't like walking to put on their shoes:
1. A walk becomes more interesting if you listen to a podcast or audio book, advises the Healthy Back Campaign (AGR). Or have your good friend or father on the phone to update each other.
2. What can also increase motivation are small photo challenges. To do this, you choose a specific topic and photograph what comes before your lens that fits it. Ideas would be: architecture, bizarre things, animals or colors.
3. Another tip from AGR: leave the route of the walk to chance. For example, at every intersection you let a coin decide whether you go left or right.
4. Geocaching can also create an incentive for those who don't like walking. This is a kind of scavenger hunt in which you use an app to search for small cans in order to immortalize yourself in the logbooks they contain.
5. Do you know your own neighborhood inside and out? Maybe your walk can take you to another part of town or a neighboring village – perhaps to the café you've been wanting to try for a long time.
