By Madison Butkus
Hometown Weekly Reporter
With the start of February upon us, many of the New Year’s resolutions people have made have now become a struggle and keeping up with familiar resolutions each year of improving one’s health have suddenly been stopped short. To lend a helping hand to this ongoing debacle, the Needham Free Public Library (NFPL) hosted author Bruce Cohen, PhD to discuss his book “Excusercise: Inexcusable Excuses for Not Exercising.”
Sponsored by the Library Foundation of Needham (LFN), Dr. Cohen was welcomed into the NFPL and interviewed by Matt Robinson. Robinson is the host of The Writer’s Block on The Needham Channel and author of “Lions, Tigers, and … Bulldogs? An Unofficial Guide to the Legends and Lore of the Ivy League.”
According to the NFPL, Dr. Cohen, “is an exercise, health and sports psychologist/physiologist who has worked with the U.S. Federal government and United States Military and who, in the process of preparing his doctoral dissertation, researched the most prominent (and pernicious) excuses people make for avoiding getting or staying in shape or for giving up (at least temporarily) on their fitness goals and how best to counter/fight back. The result of (and response to) this research is his book.”
Since he was a boy, Dr. Cohen had always had a high interest in exercise and staying active, which was heavily encouraged by his parents. Going on to make a career out of his love for fitness, he began to research and understand the main problems as to why people continually relapse on their health and wellness journeys.
In order to find these answers, Dr. Cohen studied the differentiation of the relapse phase of the stages of change theory. This change theory stems around the fact that there is trans-theoretical knowledge that some people, at the beginning of the stages of change, are not willing to ever change, while on the other end, there are those who will maintain that change for over six months or more.
Through his research, Dr. Cohen discovered that there are many who are relapsers in which they will fall through the cracks of these stages of change. It is not that these relapsers necessarily have to start from the beginning once they fall through the cracks, but rather can jump start back into it doing four main things.
“You should plan for relapse,” Dr. Cohen stated, “because it is going to happen. It happens twice a year, particularly in New England. There are New Year’s resolutions now and there is also that summer transition into the fall when, if you’re a parent, kids go back to school and there is a big change or shift that is going on which leads to dropping out again from exercise that you may have started over the summer. Next would be to increase the enjoyment factor, as in doing a type of exercise that you enjoy and want to do. Another is to increase motives that someone might have. If you have only one motivation, one reason to exercise, it is not enough. Then we can also increase our social support network around us. Working out with a group of people and sharing the same fitness interests as them can help bring us out of the relapse phases.”
While these findings can vary heavily upon the population and location of people, they still could help many people out when falling into this relapse phase. Dr. Cohen could not stress enough just how important it is to try to increase that enjoyment factor of exercising since no one wants to work out if they are not having fun doing so. Structured exercise is not for everyone, but doing group classes or playing pickleball with friends is an excellent way to continue to stay active.
This discussion with Dr. Cohen is a part of the LFN’s ongoing Author Series programs happening at the NFPL. For more information about this series or about Dr. Cohen’s book, please visit the NFPL website at www.needhamlibrary.org.
