Are You Exercising for Your Mental Health or Just to Avoid Problems?
Exercise can be an effective way to deal with mental health problems . Either along with therapy and medication, or (in mild cases) instead of therapy and medication, running or going to the gym can help us manage our mood and give us a healthy outlet for stress. But where is the line between a healthy coping strategy and counterproductive avoidance?
A recent study explored this idea and I noticed a lot of familiar thoughts coming up while reading the article. The authors decided to view running as escapism, which makes a lot of sense — running can be a way to forget about everyday problems for a while. The same can be said for playing video games, reading fantasy novels, or even drowning your sorrows in alcohol.
The authors suggest that there are two types of escapism: one in which you try to experience something new or solve problems in your life, and the other in which you simply avoid or suppress what you need to deal with. Or to put it another way: you’re just running away from your problems.
Is escapism always bad?
For example, in anxiety, avoidance is a huge trap. You put off a project because you’re afraid of how it will turn out or how people will judge you. Or you don’t answer that phone call because the very thought of it scares you and it’s easier to do something other than make that phone call.
In the running study, the authors designed a survey that separated these two aspects of escapism: Are you running because you are pursuing something positive (fun, enjoyment, seeking to actively address a mental health issue) or because you are running away from something negative? (temporary suppression of thoughts about the future or thoughts about your past)?
I would imagine it would be hard to separate these ideas, but the researchers found that there wasn’t much in common between recreational runners who ran for “self-expansion” (as they called it) and those who ran for “self-development.” suppression.” Those who resorted to self-suppression, a negative form of escapism, tended to score lower on measures of life satisfaction — which, of course, could be a chicken-and-egg situation — and were more likely to show signs of exercise addiction.
How much exercise is too much?
Exercise addiction is more often talked about in the context of eating disorders than avoidance. For example, the National Eating Disorders Association describes compulsive exercise as often associated with cleansing after eating or using it to get permission to eat. Compulsive exercise can include exercise that is done at the wrong time or place, or that interferes with daily life or your health—for example, continuing to exercise despite an injury requiring rest.
In this context, exercise addiction often goes hand in hand with undernutrition and can lead to further physical health complications such as overtraining , loss of bone density, the female athlete triad, and relative lack of energy in sports (a kind of undernourishment). /overtraining).
But if you take care of yourself physically and your exercises are not too extreme, how bad is it to use exercises to avoid problems? The current study does not answer this question, and ultimately you should probably talk to a therapist to find out if you have issues that you need to address and what is the healthiest way to do so.
Personally, I know that I am guilty of using exercises for both positive and negative forms of escapism. Sometimes I get in a bad mood and I know that if I go for a walk or do 10 minute intervals on my spinbike, I will feel better and be able to get back to what I was doing. This is a good view. But I’ll also get on my bike when I’m having a bad day and I just want to put the world on pause for a little while. Or when I have “do a workout” on my to-do list along with four other things that hang over my head. Oops, after training, I probably don’t have time for the rest!
After all, I know avoidance is something I need to, well, avoid. But I also feel it’s better to have the habit of cycling for an hour a day than, say, a problem with alcohol. If you find yourself feeling this way about your exercise habits, it might be worth taking an honest look at why you exercise so much.