Is Exercise Making You Feel Worse?
You're right, the headline is a very strange one! Exercise is
vital to maintain good health and most of the time, the benefits
of exercise far out-weigh the drawbacks. But if you suffer from
a stressful or a depressive illness, exercise can actually make
you feel worse. But how can this be?
I'm sure you've heard the following statement over and over
again: exercise can help you to beat stress, or alleviate
anxiety or boost a depressed mind. This is only true in part.
Because many exercises can actually worsen these illnesses. And
even if you perform exercises that can help, these exercises
will only help temporarily.
The reason many people believe exercise to be helpful in
combating stressful and depressive illnesses is because when you
exercise vigorously for longer than 20 minutes, your body floods
with endorphins. These chemicals give us a buzz, and this is why
it is widely believed that exercise can cure stress, depression
or anxiety.
If you're suffering a stressful or depressive episode, you'll
know that no matter how regularly you exercise, the bad feelings
return. The only way to beat these illnesses is to treat the
root cause: flawed modes of thinking. Exercise, though great for
our bodies, simply doesn't do anything to address modes of
thinking.
When my anxiety was at it's worst back in 2000, I exercised 4
times a week. For 2 days, I'd perform weight-training exercises.
These exercises are the type of exercise that can actually make
you feel worse because you have time to think about all of the
issues and problems you have in your life at the time. I'd also
warm up and warm down on bike machines or cross-trainers. Again,
you can perform these exercises easily so you can think about
your problems.
For my other workouts, I'd perform instructor-led circuit
training sessions. As you're listening out for instructions and
performing sequences of exercises at a high tempo, you don't
have time to dwell on your troubles and worries. The problem is
that once you stop exercising, you return to the modes of
thinking which lead to stress, depression or anxiety.
As soon as my workout had finished, I'd perform the flawed modes
of thinking, modes that made me anxious and depressed.
Exercising did very little