• Question: How valuable do you think your research on our thoughts during endurance activities and how that affects it is?

    Asked by anon-180743 to Viren, Sam, Noel on 12 Jun 2018.
    • Photo: Sam Burton

      Sam Burton answered on 12 Jun 2018:

      My research doesn’t go into endurance activities. I just look into it for my other work, but I don’t do any research on it sadly. I think Noel is better placed to answer this one, rather than myself. But a great question, I’ll have to check back for the answer.

    • Photo: Noel Brick

      Noel Brick answered on 12 Jun 2018:

      Hi Chloe,
      Great question, thank you for asking!
      I think our thoughts during endurance activities is really important. Endurance activities, like running, cycling, or rowing are really hard. It takes a lot of determination to keep going and to overcome thoughts like “I can’t do this!” or “I feel really tired!”. But there are lots of things we can do. Sometimes in a long run, instead of thinking how far I have to go, I just focus on getting to the next gate, or to the next turn in a road. And from there, I focus on getting to the next thing, like a parked car or a tree. Breaking a big task down to little chunks really helps.
      We can also work on changing those negative thoughts to something more positive or motivational like “I’ve done this before, I CAN do this!” or “Yes I’m tired, but I’m nearly at the finish, keep going!” can really help. I think this applies to real life too. We often have negative thoughts when we do hard things like exams. So similar strategies, just focusing on reading one page or one chapter at a time, or changing negative thoughts to more positive or motivational thoughts can help us through hard things in other areas of our lives! So for me, running has thought me a lot of things that has helped in other areas too. Try it and let me know how it works for you!

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