Exercise Addiction

It’s a scary topic to consider, but unfortunately very real. Exercise addiction is seen throughout the world. It can affect one’s ability to interact socially amongst friends and family as the addiction generally becomes very secretive and isolating. Depending on the severity of the addiction, it can also lead to excessive weight loss and poor health.

What does an exercise addiction entail? How can we identify it? And how can it affect us? First off, it is important to understand that addiction can come in any form. It is a disease and can be very harmful to the person involved.

Exercise addiction is a disorder were the individual feels the obsessive desire to exercise and move excessively. The urge becomes uncontrollable. The exercise addiction can be a primary or a secondary addiction. The primary addiction involves the addiction to the endorphins released from the body when you train. Your body creates its own sense of euphoria, and the individual will continually need to increase their training to achieve this. Once they stop, this feeling goes away. The secondary addiction involves exercising to achieve another goal (e.g. weight loss) or can be part of another addiction such as eating disorders (anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa and binge eating disorder). The consistent need to stay active stems from the desire to burn calories, be in shape and use up as much energy as possible for maximum weight loss. These individuals can have poor body image, low self-esteem, high anxiety and strive for perfection.

There are many characteristics that can be seen in an individual who suffers from exercise addiction:

They become withdrawn from general daily activities: EA’s (exercise addicts) often remove themselves from work, family events or social gatherings. They blame this on having to train for specific events. It becomes more important to exercise than to attend a birthday party or family lunch.

Their exercise becomes a secret: An EA knows that they are needing to move more than the average individual. In some situations they don’t want to undergo judgement. Some will spend a lot of time in their rooms doing crunches, lunges, and weights or pacing the room.

Their body starts to suffer: The over exercising can often result in injuries, such as stress fractures and overuse injuries, as well as excessive weight loss. It is common that an EA will train through the pain of an injury. Seeking treatment can become a fear of theirs as there is a possibility they will be told to rest.

An EA can become very irritable if they are not allowed to exercise: It is true that exercise helps to relieve stress and increases one’s endorphins. For an EA, they become very anxious, upset and often restless if they cannot exercise. This can often lead to secret training as mentioned above.

Treatment of an exercise addiction can be hard. Exercise is seen as a healthy and positive activity. One has to weigh up whether the individual is harming one’s self or if it is indeed healthy and necessary. It is true that exercise has many benefits, and for example, for an individual who suffers from high anxiety, exercise can be a great way to reduce this. This being said, a balance needs to be found between benefit and harm. It needs to be determined if the addiction is primary or secondary. One has to find out the cause of the addiction, which may have very little to do with exercise itself. Seeking professional help is the best direction to take as a professional can help to figure out the underlying issue around any form of addiction. They can address self-esteem issues or help manage behavioural patterns that lead to over exercising. Learning other coping techniques, doing breathing exercises and following specific guidelines can all assist one in managing underlying issues.

Although exercise is a great way to help one deal with stress and anxiety, it isn’t the only way to do so if it is causing more harm than good. It is just as important to look after your mind as it is your body, and over exercising will do neither. If one feels that the drive to exercise is taking over one’s life, look at why there is such a huge need to exercise. Exercise should make you happy, do it for the right reasons.