| > The problem with exercise is everything in modern life is set up to discourage it Psychologically manipulative gamification can address that. Soon after I got an Apple Watch the reminders and rewards for the activity rings got me to make sure to close all three of them daily. That was 2063 days ago and I've not missed a day. Before I got the watch I rarely deliberately exercised. I would choose stairs over elevators, and for a while I would do a 10 to 15 leisurely bike ride a couple times a week (but that stopped about a year before I got the watch due to problems with my bike that weren't worth fixing), but other than that it was mostly sitting at my desk or on my couch for me. I'd get in about a mile of walking during normal daily activities and maybe 2500 steps. Those are both 2.5x to 3x as much after the watch. What's interesting is that there were no days during that 2063 (and counting) streak where I had to force myself to continue. I got sick occasionally with a cold or a flu (or something flu like--I never got sick enough with flu like symptoms to actually go get tested to see what it was), but never bad enough that I just wanted to stay in bed until it was over. In the several years before that I would maybe once a year get something that would leave me with no will or energy to get out of bed for a day or two. So something seems to have changed, and increased exercising seems like a decent candidate. |