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 are available in the gym or on the neighborhood school track, getting just as addictive a fix. Actually, the positive nature of the term “healthy” makes health addiction all the more alluring. Regardless of the positive media, health addicts did as much damage to their families and lives as any kind of addict. In this post, we’ll look under the surface of health addiction and find a way to recovery.
How Can Something So Good Be Bad? Inside our modern Western culture, those ready to pay the purchase price for fitness are to be applauded. You can find just so many temptations to do otherwise. Exercise is mostly boring, painful and smelly, so those that endure it for about an hour, 3-5 days weekly, have achieved a level of discipline most only imagine.
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 in exercise are much the same 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: They are addictions to the actions of health and fitness, as opposed to the TV, Internet and shopping addictions that could involve health themes. Health addictions are compulsions to engage in “healthy” activities, like exercise, dieting, etc. Actually, anorexia and bulimia nervosa have both been referred to as severe health addictions. Two key symptoms of these mental disorders are exercise and dietary control to a compulsive and excessive extreme. The specific exercise or diet plan doesn’t matter. It’s an addiction when you feel compelled to do it.
HOW DO YOU Know I’m Addicted? We addicts don’t often recognize addiction because a common symptom of addiction is denial, which is even better to have about health. That is why it’s easier to find out from a friend or loved one if you have a problem in this area. For health addiction involving eating, see Anorexia Nervosa Quiz. Here are several things to look out for concerning fitness exercise addiction:
1. Do you regularly spend more than 8 hours a week exercising and may be the time you spend increasing?
2. Does your exercise schedule interfere with 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 are being too compulsive about your fitness routine?
5. Have you lied to your loved ones, friends, or employers concerning 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 difficult in your fitness program you hurt yourself?
In the event that you answered yes to any of these questions, you should think about yourself vulnerable to addiction. If you answered yes to 3 or even more, you’re probably addicted.
How Do I Recover From Health And Fitness Addiction? This is caused by a negative self-image, like any other addiction. Instead of alcohol, you utilize exercise to fill a void you are feeling in yourself. Since the relief produced by exercise is only temporary and you become conditioned, you will need regular increases in the experience to produce the same relief. Unlike alcohol, some fitness activity is required for health, so, you can’t just quit. Instead, we have to hold ourselves to no more than an hour a day, 3-5 days a week.
Spend the rest of the time you used to exercise going 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 people that have good music or reading or alternative activities that build you up. Push all the negative, self-defeating, limiting thoughts out of your mind with positive, uplifting, encouraging thoughts.
Because there are risks that health and fitness addiction could become full-blown anorexia, if you try to fail to get a handle on your addiction, please see a medical expert. Sometimes medical and psychological therapy can prevent a far more serious condition from developing, and allow you the mental energies you have to get control of yourself.
Health and fitness addiction could be just as severe as any addiction. It could imprison us into destructive, compulsive activities. health 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 news is, there is hope for anyone willing to reside in and work on recovery.