Yes…it’s possible! The word “addiction” give us images of people in dark rooms, listening to bad music and sticking needles in their arms, but many addicts are available in the gym or on the local school track, getting just as addictive a fix. Actually, the positive nature of the term “healthy” makes health addiction even more alluring. Regardless of the positive media, health addicts have done as much damage to their families and lives as any other kind of addict. In the following paragraphs, we’ll look under the surface of health and fitness addiction and find a path to recovery.
How Can Something So Good Be Bad? In our modern Western culture, those willing to pay the price for fitness are to be applauded. You can find 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 imagine.
Health and fitness addiction isn’t about health or fitness…it’s in regards to a compulsion to utilize 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 suffer from both sexual addictions and health addictions.
Types Of Health And Fitness Addiction: These are addictions to the actions of health and fitness, instead of the TV, Internet and shopping addictions which could involve health themes. Health addictions are compulsions to activate in “healthy” activities, like exercise, dieting, etc. In fact, anorexia and bulimia nervosa have both been described as severe health and fitness addictions. Two key outward indications 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 accomplish 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’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 a few things to watch out for concerning fitness exercise addiction:
1. Do you regularly spend more than 8 hours weekly exercising and is the time you spend increasing?
2. Does your exercise schedule hinder normal family activities, home or work responsibilities?
3. Do friends or family complain concerning the time or money you spend on fitness?
4. Have you wondered if you’re being too compulsive about your fitness program?
5. Have you lied to your family, friends, or employers concerning the time you spend in fitness activities?
6. Do you often see fitness in an effort to gain acceptance or praise from others?
7. Have you ever pushed so difficult in your fitness routine you hurt yourself?
In the event that you answered yes to these questions, you should think about yourself at risk of addiction. health In the event that you answered yes to 3 or more, you’re probably addicted.
How Do I GET OVER Health And Fitness Addiction? That is caused by a negative self-image, like any addiction. Instead of alcohol, you use exercise to fill a void you are feeling in yourself. Because the relief produced by exercise is only temporary and you also become conditioned, you will need regular increases in the experience to produce exactly the same relief. Unlike alcohol, a certain amount of fitness activity is required for health, so, you can’t just quit. Instead, we need 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 participating in self-development activities. You can read, go back to school, join a volunteer group. You can take up a spare time activity, like gardening or building model airplanes. To greatly help in building yourself up, avoid negative mental inputs, just 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 addiction could develop into full-blown anorexia, if you try and fail to control your addiction, please see a medical expert. Sometimes medical and psychological therapy can prevent a more serious condition from developing, and invite you the mental energies you need to get control of yourself.
Health and fitness addiction could be just as severe as any other addiction. It could imprison us into destructive, compulsive activities. We can place our families, our careers, even, ironically, our health at risk through dependence on exercise along with other fitness activities. The good news is, there is hope for anyone willing to live in and work on recovery.