How to make time for sport amid lectures and deadlines

You can’t deny the importance of sport – it makes you feel good, brings community, and provides a much-needed break from deadlines and lectures. So why, conversely, is it so difficult to fit it into our university lives? It’s easy to get swept along by the tide of socialising and studying and working and cooking and everything else in between. Then you realise you haven’t properly moved your body in two weeks (walking up to the bar doesn’t count). Thankfully though, there are ways to avoid exercise exodus. Here are some tips:

To move sport nearer to the top of competing things you could be doing, you need to make it as easy and accessible to yourself as possible. The first step is finding a sport you properly enjoy; you can’t expect tons of motivation for something you’re ambivalent about. This is kind of trial and error, because you never know whether you’ll like something until you try it, but a quick google search will show you that free taster session, even Give It A Go stuff with the uni, are abound.

So you’ve found your sport: now time to do it. Utilise everything you have to remove all the barriers you can. Plan it into your week so you know exactly when you will go (lots of sports clubs have morning sessions, and Wednesday afternoons have been left free for exactly this reason). Make agreements with friends to exercise together, because you’ll want to avoid the guilt of letting someone else down. Lay out your workout gear the night before, if applicable. A little thinking ahead can do wonders.

In the end though, the fact of the matter can’t be sugar-coated. If you want to do sport, you have to prioritise it. This can involve forcing yourself to get up in the morning when your bed is so comfortable; seeing the cold raining evening outside and going anyway; squeezing in a mid-lecture gym workout because you know it’s better than nothing. Because truly, any movement feels great. For the post-exercise high, all the discipline and time-management becomes worth it.