Kelly McGonigal - brilliantlegalmind.com

Image of happy women doing group fitness with title of the blog post "Book Review: The Joy of Movement by Kelly McGonigal"

This was not always true, but I am now one of those people who cannot stand to go a day without exercise. A few years ago, I would have found this comment annoying. Over the course of time, though, I found a way to prioritize movement each day. Now, I don’t just enjoy exercise. I need it to feel physically good and to support my mental health.

The Joy of Movement Is Not Just Another Fitness Book

If you think this sounds like an artless humble brag, then you might want to read The Joy of Movement by Kelly McGonigal (paid link). This book explains why movement is so essential to our well-being. It’s not a self-help book that tries to identify the “best” way to get fit or maximize calories burned.

Instead, The Joy of Movement is truly about the joy that moving can inspire in us as humans. The short book is composed of 7 chapters that each explain a different concept relating to movement. Most of the book discusses various exercise modalities, but other activities are covered as well.

About the Author, Kelly McGonigal

As I have written before, Kelly McGonigal is one of my favorite wellness authors. She’s a psychologist at Stanford and the author of other great books, including The Science of Compassion, and The Upside of Stress. As she explains in The Joy of Movement, McGonigal is also a fitness fanatic. She wrote the book in part to explain where her love of exercise originated.

This quest inexorably leads to a scientific analysis of the impact of movement on the body. McGonigal provides scholarly analysis on that subject in The Joy of Movement. But she also goes one step further. The book doesn’t just talk about cardiovascular and bodily benefits that arise from movement. It explains how movement offers us mental health, emotional, social, and even spiritual benefits.

The Joy of Movement Is Not Just a Science Book Either

In truth, though, McGonigal does not merely explain these benefits at all. Rather, she illustrates them with well-told stories. This is one of the reasons why I like McGonigal’s work so much. Her books do not merely cite studies or discuss concepts. She demonstrates the truth of the studies with stories.

For example, in The Joy of Movement, McGonigal explains the connection between the mythic “runner’s high” and our evolution from a hunter gatherer society. She examines popular fitness programs, including Orange Theory, Soul Cycle, and Peloton to explain how movement encourages social connection. And she shares stories of how real life people use exercise to build self-confidence, move past grief, or become more engaged in their communities.

A Health Book That Inspires Enthusiasm Rather Than Guilt or Shame

Most of us understand that exercise is good for us. Unfortunately, though, that message often inspires guilt, apathy, or even shame because it often comes with hidden pressure. Many discussions of exercise are linked, whether intentionally or not, to diet and fitness.

Those are certainly important, but I have learned that joy is a much better motivator than a “should.” In The Joy of Movement, McGonigal does not nag or scold. She does not emphasize health in the strict sense or longevity. And she does not waste time arguing about what form of movement is best for burning fat or calories or building muscle.

Image with a quote from the book review of The Joy of Movement as shared in the final paragraph of the blog post

How Movement and Joy Are Connected

Instead, as the title suggests, McGonigal’s goal is to help us see how movement cultivates joy in individuals and supports communities. If you read The Joy of Movement, you might think that you should start exercising again but only because it will remind you how awesome it feels.

In truth, The Joy of Movement is a book that feels good to read. It shares essential information about the human body and mind from an author with sufficient training to explain the concepts well. The book also shares stories that exemplify how good, generous, resilient, and kind the human race can be when it at its best.

The Joy of Movement Is a Great Read

If you read the book, though, it will be hard to forget that movement in its many forms is an important part of being at our best as humans. Whether you are a fitness fanatic or a reluctant runner, rower, or whatever, The Joy of Movement by Kelly McGonigal is a great read. It may motivate you to start or keep exercising or help you understand why you never want to stop. Even more importantly, it will help you explore how to live a joyful life.

Founder’s Note: The link to the book mentioned in this review is an affiliate link. The review is unsponsored and sincere but the link to Amazon is paid.

Want to learn more about mindfulness and compassion? Check out my new book, How to Be a Badass Lawyer, for a simple guide to creating a meditation practice of your own in 30 days. And to share mindfulness with your little one, check out my new children’s book, Mommy Needs a Minute.

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This month I am focusing on debunking myths relating to mindfulness, compassion, and mental health. After all my years of meditation, I still find myself holding onto a few myths every now and then. One of those myths is that stress is bad for you.

As a lawyer, I have been informally trained to know that stress is a scary thing. The lawyer mental health crisis tells me I have to “manage” my stress. Family, friends, and doctors will tell me to “limit” my stress. And even in my training to become a meditation, yoga, and compassion teacher, I learned that stress can impede us physically and mentally.

But, then I came upon a book by Kelly McGonigal with a title that proclaims that stress is good for me. Her book The Upside of Stress: Why Stress Is Good for You, and How to Get Good at It seemed to fly in the face of everything I thought I knew. The thing is, though, that I adore Kelly McGonigal’s work.

She explains scientific concepts in a simple and engaging way that shows she really understands them. She does this so well that, in turn, I feel like I really understand the concepts too. I thoroughly enjoyed The Willpower Instinct and The Joy of Movement and, despite it being only in audio form, learned a ton from her course on compassion.

So, even though the title made me skeptical, I decided to give The Upside of Stress a try. Guess what? It totally changed my mind. And when I say “changed” I don’t mean that it made me suddenly welcome and enjoy all the stress in my life. Instead, it refined my understanding of what stress meant and how it actually worked.

Most of us know the “fight/flight/freeze” reaction as the stress response, as if it was the only response to stress. In Upside, however, McGonigal explains that this is only one possible response to stress and it usually occurs in dire threat situations. This is when stress can harm us physically, impede our performance, and even lead to bad behavior and aggression.

On the other hand, humans can respond to stress in other ways, including the “tend and befriend” or “challenge” responses. In other words, we can learn to care for and forge connections to deal with stress or see a stressful situation as a challenge that can present opportunities. When we respond to stress in these ways, research shows that it can improve performance, cause us to behave more ethically and collaboratively, and create courage, motivation, and energy.

Now, of course, the skeptics out there are likely to wonder why we hear so many dire warnings about stress if it is good for us. McGonigal acknowledges that stress can be bad, even devastating for some of us, but she explains that the popular discourse of stress is often misleading.

One thing that is often left out of these discussions is that our reactions to and mindset about stress can determine how it affects us. That is why so much of The Upside of Stress is devoted to changing the audience’s mind about stress, because just acknowledging that stress can have an upside is the first step to healthy stress management.

When I read this part of the book, I was ever more surprised because I realized I already knew it or had at least experienced it. I had not officially accepted the idea that stress could be good for me, but I had learned through meditation to respond to stress differently.

Rather than ignore, evade, or fight stress, I had learned to regard it as a normal part of life, to accept it as human, and to treat it with care. In other words, meditation had helped me more frequently invoke a challenge or tend-and-befriend response to stress. As McGonigal argues, it didn’t make the stress go away but it made it easier to bear.

If, like most lawyers, you want some help managing stress, consider checking out The Upside of Stress by Kelly McGonigal. If the only thing it does is change your mind about stress, that alone could be enough to change your life for the better.