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 neighborhood school track, getting in the same way addictive a fix. Actually, the positive nature of the term “healthy” makes health addiction all the more alluring. Despite the positive media, health addicts have done as much damage to their own 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 path to recovery.
How Can Something SO EXCELLENT Be Bad? Inside 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 who endure it for about an hour, 3-5 days a week, have achieved an even of discipline most only imagine.
Health and fitness addiction is not 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 might 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, as opposed to it, 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 and fitness 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, that is even better to have about health. That’s why it’s easier to learn from a friend or loved one if you have an issue of this type. For health addiction involving eating, see Anorexia Nervosa Quiz. Here are some things to look out for concerning fitness exercise addiction:
1. Do you regularly spend more than 8 hours a week exercising and is 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 program?
5. Have you lied to your family, friends, or employers about the time you spend in fitness activities?
6. health 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 these questions, you should think about yourself vulnerable to addiction. In the event that you answered yes to 3 or more, you’re probably addicted.
How Do I Recover From Health And Fitness Addiction? That 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 also become conditioned, you will need regular increases in the experience to produce the same relief. Unlike alcohol, a certain amount of fitness activity is required for health, so, you can’t just quit. Instead, we must hold ourselves to no more than an hour each day, 3-5 days a week.
Spend all of those other time you used to exercise likely to AA or other addiction meetings and participating in self-development activities. You can read, get back to school, join a volunteer group. You can take up a hobby, 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 people that have good music or reading or other activities that build you up. Push all the negative, self-defeating, limiting thoughts from your mind with positive, uplifting, encouraging thoughts.
Because you can find risks that health addiction could become full-blown anorexia, if you try to fail to control your addiction, please see a doctor. 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 can be just as severe as any other addiction. It could imprison us into destructive, compulsive activities. We are able to place our families, our careers, even, ironically, our health at risk through dependence on exercise and other fitness activities. The good thing is, there is hope for anyone willing to live in and work on recovery.