"No pain, no gain" is awful advice.
Research confirms that exercise packs a bigger punch – for physical, mental, and metabolic health – when paired with a compassionate mindset that recognizes the merits of existing daily activities and celebrates healthful efforts. Pain is not only unnecessary; it can be counterproductive.
"The way we think about exercise can change our health outcomes," said Rachele Pojednic, PhD, EdM, FACSM, director of education at Stanford University's Lifestyle Medicine, during her 2025 Embody webinar, "The Overlooked Benefits of Exercise to Mind, Mood, and Habits." In fact, a person's mindset about exercise, separate and apart from their actual exercise, has a significant influence on health outcomes like blood pressure and weight, according to a study conducted by Alia Crum, PhD, of Stanford's Mind and Body Lab.
That research, and other studies, suggests that physical fitness may begin with a shift in how you think about exercise. This includes rejecting the idea that exercise must be a deliberate and painful experience, and that it's only working if it results in weight loss. That mentality hinders, rather than helps, us stay active. A better way forward is recognizing the ways in which we are already doing so much right, from an exercise point of view.
Dive into these four "a-ha!" insights from Pojednic to change how you see (and engage in) exercise:
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Changing how we think about exercise changes our health.
If someone asked you how often you exercise, you'd likely tally up gym sessions, outdoor runs, yoga classes, and rec league games, and your answer would probably be some version of, "Not enough."
The U.S. surgeon general recommends that adults get at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity or 75 minutes of vigorous-intensity aerobic activity per week, plus muscle-strengthening activities at least two days a week. And this advice is made for good reason: An inactive lifestyle, we know, harms our health.
But believing we're not getting enough exercise, Pojednic explained, also harms our health. According to Crum's research, viewing your activity level through an inadequacy framework leads to worse health outcomes.
Crum and her colleagues studied two groups of hotel staff with physically active jobs. After telling one group that their work "counted as exercise," that group, without changing their routines, showed improvements in weight, body mass index (BMI), waist-to-hip ratio, and blood pressure, compared to the control group.
"They weren't exercising more, and they didn't change their diet. But they did change their mindset," explained Pojednic. "Believing that you were exercising made all of the difference."
Apply this lesson to your own life by recognizing the things you do in the course of a normal day that raise your heart rate and strengthen your muscles: chasing toddlers, hauling big bags of kitty litter up the stairs, walking your dog, and more.
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Exercise is medicine for the brain.
We often put brains and brawn on opposite sides of an imaginary divide, but biology tells us that our muscle influences our brain – and other organs as well.
"Muscle is a very communicative organ," Pojednic said. "As you flex a muscle, whether you're lifting a weight or cleaning your floor, your muscle sends signaling molecules that interact with other parts of your body, particularly your brain."
Research has found that exercise improves symptoms of mood disorders, including depression, as well as posttraumatic stress disorder and schizophrenia. Outcomes for Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's, Huntington's, multiple sclerosis, brain injuries, and cerebrovascular diseases can all be directly impacted by body movement.
"Exercise has a tremendously powerful and positive impact on your brain," Pojednic said, adding that it also benefits the gut, liver, kidneys, and bones, in addition to the heart.
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Exercise offers the 'just right' amount of stress your body needs.
We tend to think of stress as a bad thing, but that's not the whole truth, explained Pojednic. Just as there's negative stress (distress) that, in excess, can harm our health, there is positive stress (eustress) that energizes and activates our body and mind, helping us grow. Removing all stress can be detrimental to our health, inducing boredom, sleeplessness or oversleeping, and depression.
"What we want in our life is just enough stress, but not too much," Pojednic said. "This is what increases our resilience."
A perfect place to find this Goldilocks-style "just right" amount of stress is in exercise.
"When we exercise, we are stressing our bodies, increasing our core temperature, heart rate, and blood pressure," Pojednic explained. "This little bit of stress can have dramatic and profound effects on our physiology. This is where the communication between your muscles and the other organs in your body starts to work."
Thinking of some forms of stress as potentially enhancing, instead of debilitating, may help you achieve this balance.
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The most important muscle you need to flex is your patience.
There is no way around it: Developing fitness habits takes time, and consistency is critical. "People overestimate what they can do in a day and underestimate what they can do in a year," Pojednic said.
Trouble is, in the absence of instant results, it's tough to continue doing something unappealing or to try something new. So, don't do something new or unappealing, she said.
To get the health benefits of physical activity, you don't need to choose from a limited menu of traditional "exercise" options that may not appeal to you, or may seem prohibitively costly or time-consuming. If you dread the prospect of the Peloton, or running, or SoulCycle, take a different path.
- Continue, or increase, an activity you're already doing in daily life, like walking the dog or carrying groceries.
- Do an activity you love, even if it's less vigorous than the "ideal" exercise. Gardening with pleasure every day is far better than jogging reluctantly once every two weeks.
"It doesn't need to be hard. It can be yoga, or a walk with a friend, or a really heavy lift, if that's what you like," Pojednic said. "If we're thinking about overall health, the most important part is doing the thing you love, that you will do consistently."
