By Chris Price, Hobart Performance Studio
Emotion for Mojo
We all know the emotional and mental benefits of exercising and grounding ourselves in nature. The runne’r’s high, the exchange of energy and the ability to leave all our troubles behind. But this is the result of playing wilder - how we emotionally and mentally prepare ourselves in the lead up to our trail run is what we are going to address here.
So you’ve done the physical training and you are fit and ready to go. You may have had a stressful week at work and seeing posts on the Wilder Trails Facebook Group has your motivation high - a chance to forget your worries and leave it all behind.
But despite your motivation and physical readiness, your emotional and mental state can have a subconscious impact on your sense of effort. While the mindset of Wilder Trails is generally about Playing Wilder - seeing the sights and experiencing all that the trail has to offer - your sense of effort or how hard something feels can potentially make the experience less enjoyable. A hill that you would normally be able to climb up with moderate effort will suddenly become a lot harder if your mental and emotional state is fatigued, which becomes more important on the longer and more difficult trails.
Altering your sense of effort, and therefore your perceived exertion is an area that we can easily affect.
Some simple and obvious areas of focus are your sleep and nutrition and you can learn more about how to optimise these by reading REST and NUTRITION (still to come).
Granted, some things are out of our control but being conscious of how you use your brain goes a long way to subconsciously improving your mental and emotional state and this is further explained in The Science below.
In the lead up to your trail run try to:
Effectively, as you get closer to your run we suggest reducing the amount of activities or tasks that require increased brain power or concentration. This reduces mental fatigue and in turn keeps your sense of effort lower, which in turn allows you to squeeze every drop of enjoyment out of playing wilder.
The Science
In 2009 a study found that participants who performed a mentally fatiguing computer task that required sustained focus gave up 15.1% sooner in a cycling test than when they just watched a bland documentary. Heart rate, blood pressure, oxygen consumption, lactate levels and a host of other physiological factors were all identical. They reached their perceived maximal exertion sooner when mentally fatigued.
In the same sense that mental fatigue can alter your sense of effort, smiles and other facial expressions can have even more subtle effects. In another study from 2014, cyclists were shown periodically images of happy or sad faces in 16-millisecond bursts. Those who were shown happy faces lasted 3mins longer at the predetermined pace and reported a lower sense of effort. Seeing a smiling face, even subliminally, evokes feelings of ease that bleed into your perception of how hard you’re running.
To add to this point, if you can go running with a friend or multiple friends then this effect will be even more apparent. Encouraging each other with phrases like “how good is this” and “it’s so beautiful out here” or “I’m so glad to be running with you” will go a long way to making your effort seem so much easier. Just like a smile or frown, the words in your head have the power to influence the very feelings they’re supposed to reflect.
2009 Study: “Mental Fatigue Impairs Physical Performance in Humans”, Journal of Applied Physiology 106, no. 3.
2014 Study: “Non-Conscious Visual Cues Related to Affect and Action Alter Perception of Effort and Endurance Performance”, Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, December 11, 2014.
We all know the emotional and mental benefits of exercising and grounding ourselves in nature. The runne’r’s high, the exchange of energy and the ability to leave all our troubles behind. But this is the result of playing wilder - how we emotionally and mentally prepare ourselves in the lead up to our trail run is what we are going to address here.
So you’ve done the physical training and you are fit and ready to go. You may have had a stressful week at work and seeing posts on the Wilder Trails Facebook Group has your motivation high - a chance to forget your worries and leave it all behind.
But despite your motivation and physical readiness, your emotional and mental state can have a subconscious impact on your sense of effort. While the mindset of Wilder Trails is generally about Playing Wilder - seeing the sights and experiencing all that the trail has to offer - your sense of effort or how hard something feels can potentially make the experience less enjoyable. A hill that you would normally be able to climb up with moderate effort will suddenly become a lot harder if your mental and emotional state is fatigued, which becomes more important on the longer and more difficult trails.
Altering your sense of effort, and therefore your perceived exertion is an area that we can easily affect.
Some simple and obvious areas of focus are your sleep and nutrition and you can learn more about how to optimise these by reading REST and NUTRITION (still to come).
Granted, some things are out of our control but being conscious of how you use your brain goes a long way to subconsciously improving your mental and emotional state and this is further explained in The Science below.
In the lead up to your trail run try to:
- Resist a strategic board game like Chess or 500 and watch a comedy instead.
- Don’t cook from a new, unfamiliar recipe the night before and instead cook a simple favourite.
- Pack your running gear, running vest and all your intricate things at the start of the week.
- Surround your work desk with pictures and photos of people smiling.
- Listen to music rather than a podcast on the drive to your trail run.
Effectively, as you get closer to your run we suggest reducing the amount of activities or tasks that require increased brain power or concentration. This reduces mental fatigue and in turn keeps your sense of effort lower, which in turn allows you to squeeze every drop of enjoyment out of playing wilder.
The Science
In 2009 a study found that participants who performed a mentally fatiguing computer task that required sustained focus gave up 15.1% sooner in a cycling test than when they just watched a bland documentary. Heart rate, blood pressure, oxygen consumption, lactate levels and a host of other physiological factors were all identical. They reached their perceived maximal exertion sooner when mentally fatigued.
In the same sense that mental fatigue can alter your sense of effort, smiles and other facial expressions can have even more subtle effects. In another study from 2014, cyclists were shown periodically images of happy or sad faces in 16-millisecond bursts. Those who were shown happy faces lasted 3mins longer at the predetermined pace and reported a lower sense of effort. Seeing a smiling face, even subliminally, evokes feelings of ease that bleed into your perception of how hard you’re running.
To add to this point, if you can go running with a friend or multiple friends then this effect will be even more apparent. Encouraging each other with phrases like “how good is this” and “it’s so beautiful out here” or “I’m so glad to be running with you” will go a long way to making your effort seem so much easier. Just like a smile or frown, the words in your head have the power to influence the very feelings they’re supposed to reflect.
2009 Study: “Mental Fatigue Impairs Physical Performance in Humans”, Journal of Applied Physiology 106, no. 3.
2014 Study: “Non-Conscious Visual Cues Related to Affect and Action Alter Perception of Effort and Endurance Performance”, Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, December 11, 2014.