Homer Simpson (c) Fox Media
Well, maybe not entirely, but some recent research does bring up an interesting point: if we think what we’re doing is good exercise, does it actually become good exercise?
It’s certainly true that our attitude towards exercise itself informs our enthusiasm and performance – if you dread getting on the treadmill, it’s going to feel like it sucks, or if you’re fired up about a game of ultimate frisbee, you’re primed to go all-out. But what these researchers did was more subtle – they simply told people that what they already do on the job was considered to be a healthy level of exercise. There wasn’t any additional work or exercise being done, just that mental seed being planted.
It worked.
The control group, who weren’t told that their day job was considered to be a healthy level of exercise, kept doing their thing, and pretty much held steady in terms of weight, body shape, and all the other factors the researchers measured. The folks who were told, “Yeah, your day job is as good as hitting the gym,” on the other hand, lost weight and inches. As our favorite green-blooded Science Officer would say, “Fascinating.”
There have been previous studies that show people’s perception of their own health among the elderly – regardless of how accurate or inaccurate it is – has a strong correlation with their likelihood of dying. Those people who thought they were fairly healthy were six times less likely to die than those folks who believed themselves to be in poor health. Obviously, there’s a skew to these figures introduced by the fact that, you know, it’s hard to ignore certain late-stage medical conditions, but it does bring into focus how much of our health can be attitude-related.
This is, in a very narrow sense, one of the things that those “fake it until you make it” exhortations seems to be trying to talk us into. If you think what you’re doing makes you healthy, it’s possible it’s doing just that.
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