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 local school track, getting in the same way addictive a fix. In fact, the positive nature of the word “healthy” makes health addiction even 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 addiction and find a path to recovery.
How Can Something SO EXCELLENT Be Bad? In our modern Western culture, those willing to pay the purchase price for fitness should be applauded. There are 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 a week, have achieved an even of discipline most only dream of.
Health and fitness addiction is not about health or fitness…it’s in regards to 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 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 And Fitness Addiction: These are addictions to the activities of health and fitness, instead of the TV, Internet and shopping addictions which 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 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 program doesn’t matter. It’s an addiction when 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 loved one if you have a problem of this type. health 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 weekly 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 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 concerning the time you may spend in fitness activities?
6. Can you often see fitness as a way 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 any of these questions, you should look at yourself vulnerable to 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 are feeling in yourself. Since the relief produced by exercise is 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 only an hour each day, 3-5 days a week.
Spend the rest of the time you used to exercise likely to AA or other addiction meetings and engaging in self-development activities. You could 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, like the news, drama, negative, insulting friends. Replace people that have good music or reading or alternative 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 become 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 more serious condition from developing, and invite you the mental energies you need to get control of yourself.
Health and fitness addiction can be just as severe as any other addiction. It can imprison us into destructive, compulsive activities. We can 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.
