I’ve been thinking about self worth a bit today, and the process of valuing one’s own existence.

It’s not as grim as it sounds.

My priorities at the moment are study, and uh, study. That’s it. I work to support myself, but when it comes down to it, almost every second of my spare time, when I’m not sleeping or keeping myself from being a stinky unwashed hermit, is generally devoted to getting my thesis done. In fact, until a couple of weekends ago, I hadn’t even socialised in longer than I could remember.

Because I put so much time and effort into my thesis, I feel really guilty when I do other things, like read books, or faff about online, or watch TV, or exercise. The other things I guess I can live without, but my lack of exercise is starting to bother me, because the longer I go without, the harder I find it to get back into the habit.

I’m trying to convince my inner exercise freak to unleash itself and become reacquainted with me. Exercise is one of those areas in which I am such an all-or-nothing person. I will work out like a demon for months on end, and then just stop. And not do anything else for months.

I’m currently in one of those slumps.

I walk my dog but that’s about it. I have a gym membership that is just languishing because I’ve convinced myself that I just don’t have time to exercise… yet I’m tired pretty much 75% of the time because I don’t do anything really good for my body. The other 25% of the time I’m sleeping.

Science and psychology (that second one is worth viewing for the creepy picture) have proven that exercise is amazing and important in so many ways. Asides from the obvious benefit of not being a complete lump of a human being, it’s also really great for happiness, memory, focus, energy levels, and stress. I’m a pretty happy person these days, but I sure could do with better memory, and I lack focus (often because I’m thinking about how guilty I am for not exercising!), and I’m always tired (as I said), and stress is definitely always hanging over my shoulder, waiting to bite.

Not only that, but every guide to doing a PhD that there is recommends exercise to keep yourself sane and give you more energy.

So it would appear that all there is left to do is to actually just do some exercise. I’m on the verge of printing out a calendar and sticking coloured stars on it for every day that I actually do something, which is very childish but my current stubbornness and unwillingness to exercise is childish, too, so it’s probably a fair way to deal with it.

My sense of self worth is shouting at me that I deserve to put the time aside to exercise daily without feeling guilty that I am taking time away from study, and I know that exercising will make my study time more efficient.

What would you do? Any tips for getting me out of the study and onto my yoga mat/the road?