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What to do when the frustration strikes when you can’t work out?

When does working out increase well-being? When does it become addiction. Will all the result disappear, if one can't workout? The corona virus has affected the exercise routines of many of us. You may not be able to do your normal workout routines or participate in your favorite group exercise classes. The situation can evoke all kinds of emotions. Unisport instructor Petra Nyman writes to us about relationship to exercise.

For many of us exercise has become the highlight of our week, when we can blow off steam and get our endorphins flowing. We clearly notice the lack of our favorite exercise classes: frustration, anger, and perhaps it even depresses us. How can we ever adapt to not being able to exercise like before?

In this situation we have to adapt to a very different type of day-to-day life than what most of us have been used to. The adaptability of our mind is truly being tested. Can we exercise at home? Can we take a walk outside? At the same time that you are thinking of alternative ways to stay active, it is a good time to think about our own relationship with exercise. Does exercise increase our well-being or has it perhaps already become an addiction?

A good relationship to exercise

Exercise increases well-being when it upkeeps or improves your fitness level, when it is a part of your life that gives you enjoyment, or through enjoying the social interactions that come with it. If it is easy for you to leave out a workout when something more important arises, it looks like your relationship with exercise is healthy.

If the answers to the following questions is yes, you shouldn’t be worried about your relationship to exercise:

  • Is your weekly routine structured so that you remember to rest as well as exercise and other uplifting activities?
  • Are there other enjoyments to your life other than exercising?
  • Are you well recovered before your next workout?
  • Do you have to complete x workouts a week, so that you feel good about yourself?

Time to explore your feelings more closely

Your relationship to exercising becomes an addiction if your self worth is dependent on whether you exercise, if you consider yourself fat, bad or unworthy if you cannot exercise or if exercising is your only method to release negative energy buildup. Often addictions form when there are problems in other aspects of your life. Addiction, in this case exercising offers a momentary exit and gives you a feeling of relief. Through exercising you can control your body and your own mood and in the midst of difficult times it offers a sensation of control that is important to us. It’s increasingly serious if your loved ones are worried about your exercise habits. It’s time to stop, once you feel that nothing matters if you can’t exercise.

If you notice that exercising has become an addiction, get help: talk to a friend or a psychologist and think of how you can find other ways to release negative feelings or to get feelings of self worth.

This can help you get to know the person that you are, when you aren't constantly exercising and going a million miles per hour. You are good and worthy, even though you can’t exercise like before.

 

Text:
Petra Nyman
psychologist, pilates instructor

 

P.S. Do you think about your own relationship to exercise? If you want, take a short exercise addiction test https://sciencenordic.com/denmark-forskerzonen-kids-and-young-people/test-yourself-are-you-addicted-to-exercise/1454379