This strikes me as pretty similar to gamification, honestly. You went to the gym this week 1/7

I guess if it works, but man I think we need to do some work as a society and species to untangle how messed up we've become that we need a little jingle to motivate us to do good things for ourselves and make healthy choices.

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dozerly 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. Humans have been well and truly figured out, and we’ve built an ecosystem for ourselves that is predatory to every single one of our desires and weaknesses. For many, the reward signal received when doing a good and healthy thing is a whisper compared to the fog horn of brain chemicals just perusing through social media gives you. Humans are desensitized, and I think things like this article are people re-hacking their reward mechanisms to try and take back control.

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TeMPOraL 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Life is tangled. "Healthy choices" are now choices, previously they were side effects of trying to not die.

Exercise, for example, is bullshit make-work that only some subset of people are wired to enjoy for some reason (never worked out how, I'm gonna guess they're either wired to receive reward signal for this, or it's social activity; half of life's motivation is low-key sexual drive anyway). I don't. So I have to find whatever proxy that works for me.

100 years ago this wouldn't be an issue, because I'd naturally get fit, because daily life required substantial amount of physical labor that we've since automated away.

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ipsod 35 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

If you can find exercise that's "play" for you, that's the trick.

I like hacky sack and kettlebells. I can play hacky sack for 15 minutes, wherever I am, and easily keep my heart rate between 160 and 190 bpm. I can do kettlebells in my bedroom in 15 minutes, and stay pretty strong and capable. They're both genuinely fun for me, and leave me feeling better (lower stress, more alert, stronger, more agile, more attractive, less like a lazy slob).

I never could spend 10 minutes to and from the gym, and another 45 there, or anything like that. I feel lucky to have found these things I do like.

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chrisweekly 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

IME a huge proportion of people who exercise do so (at least at first) because they enjoy the results (including how they feel afterwards, eg endorphins), not doing the exercise itself. The idea that only some people are wired to enjoy it and you're not one of them sounds like an excuse not to endure some discomfort to reap the benefits.

	▲	Telaneo 28 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		If you don't get the endorphins afterwards, that sure sounds like not being wired to enjoy exercise.
	▲	TeMPOraL 15 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		I for one know I don't enjoy the benefits - not enough to trigger any reward loop anyway. It's a known limitation for me, making it hard to consciously form habits in general. Many people have this. (It's probably a matter of degree as well as kind - in my case, whatever the intensity/delay critical threshold is, it's sufficiently low to allow functioning, but high enough that exercise doesn't stick.)

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jurgenburgen 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> Exercise, for example, is bullshit make-work that only some subset of people are wired to enjoy for some reason (never worked out how, I'm gonna guess they're either wired to receive reward signal for this, or it's social activity; half of life's motivation is low-key sexual drive anyway). I don't. So I have to find whatever proxy that works for me.

I honestly think nobody enjoys the exercise itself. The real motivation is second order effects like becoming more appealing to other people.

	▲	vova_hn2 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> I honestly think nobody enjoys the exercise itself. The real motivation is second order effects like becoming more appealing to other people. I, actually, do enjoy the exercise itself. Although, it doesn't prevents me from procrastinating going to the gym and being in terrible shape.

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Brendinooo 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Are we in some sort of historical outlier in this regard? What do you know about this? Like were people in medieval times way more motivated than we were today or something?

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4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[deleted]

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XorNot 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Okay but like, why?

If you're actually doing the thing who cares how achieve it.

The problem isn't when people do things, it's when they spend all their time coming up with the game and then stop playing, which makes it just a form of procrastinating yet far too common.