The Joy of Movement: How exercise helps us find happiness, hope, connection, and courage

Excellent

Very good condition

About to dive into it for a second time. Excited to re-experience it. Highly recommend if you love science blended with storytelling.

I was enjoying reading it, until it started detailing experiments with animals, trivialising the suffering of those creature for the sake of non essential or life saving research: 'each mouse was sacrificed. The researchers scooped out its brain, slicing and staining the gray matter for examination.' I will still get something out of this book, but unpleasant to read

Kelly McGonigal is one of my favorite authors. In The Joy of Movement, she shares broad and fascinating research on how exercise can bring us happiness, hope, connection, and courage (as the subtitle suggests).Some of the core lessons I got from the book include these:- The Persistence High: The "runner's high" isn't reserved for runners. It's available to anyone who does more than 20 minutes of exercise.- The Cooperation High: By synchronizing your movements with someone else - by exercising together - you tap into a unique sense of bonding with others around you. Armies feel it when marching; couples feel it when dancing; and you can feel it when exercising in a group class, running with a friend, or doing any other physical activity which includes other people.- Green Exercise: Exercising in nature is rejuvenating, and unlocks the possibility of feeling one with the world around you.But if there's one thing you should take away with you from reading this book, it's this: Move. Do exercise you enjoy. Do it with others. And, if possible, do it outside in nature.If this is not convincing enough (and even if it is!), read the book yourself. You'll thank yourself in the years to come. :-)

I had to force myself to get to the end of this book. It felt like the author read a handful of scientific journal articles, then fluffed them out with personal anecdotes, interviews with her own clients, and ‘I did some research on the internet’ ie. a few blogs lifted off the web. The gist of the whole book is that exercise is the new church, and so it was extolling things like Crossfit and Ironman and Peloton. There didn’t seem to be much critical thought around these franchises, so read like an advert for them.