Exercise Addiction – Are you getting too much of it?
As a culture in which an estimated 64% of the population is either overweight or obese, it is clear that more exercise plus a healthier diet is needed. The obesity epidemic is even worse in the US where around 72% of the population is suffering. On the other end of the spectrum, many people who are already fit seem to be taking too much exercise, and in doing so they are in danger of causing themselves harm. In fact, there is a distinct possibility that some of them are actually addicted to exercise.
It seems that there are many parallels between substance addiction and exercise addiction (Landolfi, 2013); these may include dependence, loss of control; tolerance; and withdrawal. While sports addiction has been associated with specific personality traits such as narcissism and eating disorders (Lichtenstein, Christiansen, Elklit, Bilenberg, & Støving, 2014) it can affect anyone.
Exercise – Getting the balance right
Clearly getting insufficient exercise is bad for your health. Combine it with too many calories and junk food and the inevitable result is too high a BMI and the potential risk of concomitant health problems such as diabetes and cancer.
On the other hand, as indicated above, too much exercise can also be harmful, so how do you know when you are getting enough? As Goldilocks said, the aim is to get it just right, and when you do, there are huge benefits to enjoy.
Naturally, different kinds of people need different amounts of exercise, and these needs change as we get older. Getting it right can add several years to your life. According to the government we need at least 150 minutes of moderate exercise a week, just to keep normally healthy and fit. For most people who are involved in any form of sport that doesn’t sound very much, and indeed it isn’t. However, in a huge 14-year study it was shown that people who do get this amount lived longer with a 31% reduced chance of dying over those 14 years.
However, people who exercised for 10 times longer than this, that is 1,500 minutes a week, enjoyed the same benefits. Those who did best exercised for 450 minutes a week. But at least that suggests, for most people exercising for 1,500 minutes a week isn’t harmful.
The warning signs of exercise addiction
The warning signs of exercise addiction have been examined by various research groups as have the effects of sudden withdrawal (Antunes, Leite , Lee, Barreto, & dos Santos, 2016). These are some of the more important ones:
• Tolerance – do you find that you need to increase the amount of exercise you need to achieve the effect you desire or do you experience reducing effects if you stick to the same amount of exercise? If you can answer yes to either of these, then you are beginning to show the signs of exercise addiction.
• Withdrawal – if you miss your regular exercise to you start to feel anxious and fatigued? Do you need to take increasing amount of exercise in order to avoid these feelings? These are withdrawal symptoms and are a classic sign of exercise addiction.
• Exercising for longer than you planned – do you find that you regularly exercise for longer periods of time than you had planned? If so this is known as intention effect and is associated with exercise addiction.
• Out of control – do you want to reduce the amount of exercise you take but you find that you are unable to do so? Losing control of the amount of exercise you take is a strong indicator that you are addicted to it.
• Taking up too much of your life – are other things in your life suffering because of the amount of time you devote to exercise? This might apply to your job, your family, relationships, or just other things that you would like to get on with. This is another classic sign of addiction.
• Can’t stop exercising even when it hurts – do you feel compelled to keep on exercising even when you know that doing so is causing or will cause you harm? For instance, would you carry on running even after having sustaining an injury?
If you are showing any of these signs, then you are either already addicted to exercise or are in danger of becoming so in the future.
So what is just right for you?
Clearly if you are showing any signs of exercise addiction it is time to take stock and talk about it to a sports psychologist, or at least to your trainer. You will need to cut down, but you will need to do so carefully and preferably with some help. But for most people there is a wide margin between the extremes of not enough and too much. Just keep within these and you should be fine.
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References
Antunes, H. K., Leite , G. S., Lee, K. S., Barreto, A. T., & dos Santos, R. V. (2016). Exercise deprivation increases negative mood in exercise-addicted subjects and modifies their biochemical markers. Physiology & Behavior .
Landolfi, E. (2013). Exercise addiction. Sports medicine, 43(2), 111-119.
Lichtenstein, M. B., Christiansen, E., Elklit, A., Bilenberg, N., & Støving, R. K. (2014). Exercise addiction: A study of eating disorder symptoms, quality of life, personality traits and attachment styles. Psychiatry research, 215(2), 410-416.
