Why does the body come last?
One night last week I was enjoying my weekly yin yoga class when I thought, wow, between my run this morning and this class, I’ve spent a lot of time today doing some kind of exercise. I wasn’t congratulating myself, though. I felt an odd stab of guilt.
“Isn’t it indulgent to spend this much time focused on my body?”
“Aren’t there more important things I should work on?”
“How can I be productive if I give so much time to my physical well being?”
These are the kind of thoughts that pushed their way into my previously peaceful brain. They made me realize that even though I think I have a balanced, holistic attitude when it comes to caring for my whole being, I still have some (cough, capitalist) baggage weighing down my feelings about this issue.
We live in a culture obsessed with exercise, physical appearance, and “health,” where we’re admonished to engage in physical fitness every day. This is treated like an imperative, passed down from medical authorities, governments, and schools and cycled through our social media on repeat. Just about every self-help book contains advice for getting motivated to exercise and making it part of your routine. We’re told to prioritize “taking care of our bodies,” with the subtext being that if we don’t, illness, injury, and aging are our own fault.
The irony is for all the force of this messaging, we’re still expected to fit this intense body work in around all of the other stuff we have to do to be good workers, students, parents, etc. It’s simultaneously a must, and an extra.
Maybe this is why we’re perennially shocked, annoyed, and dismayed at our “failures” to get to yoga, go for a run, take a walk, meditate, hit the gym, or whatever. We’ve been told it’s a non-negotiable part of our day, yet our days aren’t actually built to allow this. We have expected working hours and school hours. Family time. Commutes. We’ve made many forms of exercise expensive, complicated, and elitist (thanks again capitalism and tech bros!).
This is why we try to get up extra early, or do Zumba at lunch break, or pathetically wave a couple of weights around when we’re exhausted after the kids go to bed. There’s really no winning: you feel guilty if you don’t do something for your body, and you feel guilty if it takes you away from what’s seen as “real” work.
Given how toxic our culture is around linking exercise to dieting and the pursuit of impossible body standards, I won’t be calling for an official “everybody go to the gym” hour. We need to rethink the prescriptive attitude we have toward (certain forms of) exercise as much as we should rethink the assumption that doing something for your body has to happen AFTER you do everything else you’re supposed to do.
Maybe we can both expand the list of activities that fall into the “taking care of your body” bucket (naps, tasty meals, baths, stretching) and push back the guilt that comes when we try to make time for them (as if time is a substance we can just produce more of!).
Perhaps there’s just as much “value” in the hours we spend walking or swimming as there is in the hours we spend working. We just have to be clear on what values we’re talking about: money/productivity? Or pleasure, mental/physical health, longevity, easing of pain, and so much more?
What I’m reading: The Briar Club by Kate Quinn. As ever, Quinn’s storytelling hooks me right away.
What I’m watching: Just started Prime Target on Apple TV+. Mathematicians x spies? I’m intrigued.
Oh I completely get this. As a woman, there is never, ever any time off. There is always something else you could be doing, better, more, for longer and I think that's part of the issue. It's just another thing on the to do list. So it is part indulgence, part resentment.
Having said that, I do all my best thinking when walking or cycling, so it is necessary. But I only understand that when I have set off.