Yes…it’s possible! The term “addiction” give us images of people in dark rooms, listening to bad music and sticking needles within their arms, but many addicts can be found in the gym or on the neighborhood school track, getting just as addictive a fix. In fact, the positive nature of the term “healthy” makes health and fitness addiction all the more alluring. Regardless of the positive media, health addicts have done as much damage to their families and lives as any kind of addict. In this article, we’ll look under the surface of health and fitness addiction and find a way to recovery.
How Can Something SO EXCELLENT Be Bad? In our modern Western culture, those ready to pay the price for fitness should be applauded. There are just so many temptations to do otherwise. Exercise is mainly boring, painful and smelly, so those that endure it for about one hour, 3-5 days weekly, have achieved a level of discipline most only dream of.
Health and fitness addiction isn’t about health or fitness…it’s about a compulsion to use healthy activities to fill a void we see in ourselves. Addicts are compelled, not disciplined. The addictive chemicals involved with exercise are quite similar as those in sex and porn addiction. This may explain why many people have problems with both sexual addictions and health addictions.
Types Of HEALTH Addiction: These are addictions to the actions of health and fitness, as opposed to it, Internet and shopping addictions which could involve health themes. Health and fitness addictions are compulsions to engage in “healthy” activities, like exercise, dieting, etc. In fact, anorexia and bulimia nervosa have both been described as severe health addictions. Two key symptoms of these mental disorders are exercise and dietary control to a compulsive and excessive extreme. The precise exercise or diet plan doesn’t matter. It’s an addiction once you feel compelled to accomplish it.
How Do I Know I’m Addicted? We addicts don’t often recognize addiction just because a common symptom of addiction is denial, which is even easier to have about health. That’s why it’s easier to learn from a friend or cherished one if you have an issue in this area. For health addiction involving eating, see Anorexia Nervosa Quiz. Here are several things to watch out for concerning fitness exercise addiction:
1. Do you regularly save money than 8 hours weekly exercising and may be the time you spend increasing?
2. Does your exercise schedule hinder normal family activities, home or work responsibilities?
3. Do friends or members of the family complain concerning the time or money you may spend on fitness?
4. Have you wondered if you’re being too compulsive about your fitness routine?
5. Have you lied to your family, friends, or employers about the time you may spend in fitness activities?
6. Can you often see fitness in an effort to gain acceptance or praise from others?
7. Have you ever pushed so hard in your fitness routine you hurt yourself?
If you answered yes to these questions, you should look at yourself at risk of addiction. If you answered yes to 3 or more, you’re probably addicted.
. How Do I GET OVER Health And Fitness Addiction? That is the effect of a negative self-image, like any other addiction. Instead of alcohol, you use exercise to fill a void you feel in yourself. Since the relief produced by exercise is temporary and you also become conditioned, you need regular increases in the experience to produce exactly the same relief. Unlike alcohol, some fitness activity is necessary for health, so, you can’t just quit. Instead, we need to hold ourselves to only an hour a day, 3-5 days a week.
Spend all of those other time you used to exercise likely to AA or other addiction meetings and engaging in self-development activities. You can read, go back to school, join a volunteer group. You could take up a spare time activity, like gardening or building model airplanes. To help in building yourself up, avoid negative mental inputs, like the news, drama, negative, insulting friends. Replace those with good music or reading or other activities that build you up. Push all of the negative, self-defeating, limiting thoughts out of your mind with positive, uplifting, encouraging thoughts.
Because you can find risks that health and fitness addiction could develop into full-blown anorexia, if you try to fail to control your addiction, please see a medical expert. Sometimes medical and psychological therapy can prevent a far more serious condition from developing, and invite you the mental energies you have to get control of yourself.
Health and fitness addiction can be just as severe as any addiction. It could imprison us into destructive, compulsive activities. We are able to place our families, our careers, even, ironically, our health and wellness at risk through addiction to exercise along with other fitness activities. The good thing is, there is hope for anyone willing to live in and work on recovery.