Still, most people don't exercise nearly enough. According to data published in 2023 , less than a third of U.S. adults get the government-recommended amount of physical activity in their free time: at least 20 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic movement (think brisk walking) per day, plus a couple muscle-strengthening sessions (such as resistance training) each week.
But research suggests there's another obstacle that affects all of us: our brains don't want us to exercise.
Physical-activity researcher Matthieu Boisgontier, an associate professor at the University of Ottawa, demonstrated that phenomenon in a 2018 study . While hooked up to brain-activity monitors, people were given control of a digital avatar. They were told to move the avatar away from images of sedentary behavior that popped up on their computer screens and toward images of physical activity. Boisgontier and his colleagues found that avoiding sedentary behavior took more brain power, which suggests "we have an automatic tendency" to choose relaxing over moving, he says.
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