Yes…it’s possible! The term “addiction” give us images of people in dark rooms, hearing bad music and sticking needles within their arms, but many addicts can be found 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 all the more alluring. Regardless of the positive media, health addicts did as much damage to their own families and lives as any kind of addict. On this page, we’ll look beneath the surface of health addiction and find a path to recovery.
How Can Something So Good Be Bad? In our modern Western culture, those ready to pay the purchase price for fitness should be applauded. There are just so many temptations to accomplish otherwise. Exercise is mostly boring, painful and smelly, so those who endure it for about one hour, 3-5 days a week, have achieved an even of discipline most only imagine.
Health and fitness addiction isn’t 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 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 activities of health and fitness, instead of it, Internet and shopping addictions that could involve health themes. Health addictions are compulsions to activate 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 precise exercise or diet program doesn’t matter. It’s an addiction when you feel compelled to do 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 is why it’s easier to find out from a friend or loved one if you have an issue of this type. For health addiction involving eating, see Anorexia Nervosa Quiz. Below are a few things to look out for concerning fitness exercise addiction:
1. Do you regularly save money than 8 hours weekly exercising and may be the time you spend increasing?
2. Does your exercise schedule hinder normal family activities, home or work responsibilities?
3. Do friends or members of the family complain about 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. Herbal Health Do you often see fitness as a way to gain acceptance or praise from others?
7. Have you ever pushed so difficult in your fitness program you hurt yourself?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, you should consider 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? 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. Because the relief produced by exercise is only temporary and you also become conditioned, you 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 need to 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 could read, get back to school, join a volunteer group. You could take up a hobby, 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 other activities that build you up. Push all of the negative, self-defeating, limiting thoughts from your mind with positive, uplifting, encouraging thoughts.
Because there are risks that health 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 far more serious condition from developing, and allow you the mental energies you should get control of yourself.
Health and fitness addiction can be just as severe as any addiction. It could 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 and other fitness activities. The good news is, there is expect anyone willing to live in and work on recovery.