Exercise addiction is a real thing!

Anyone who has ever experienced the so-called "runner´s high" and subsequently found themselves chasing after that feeling will know exactly what I mean. The natural high of your body overloading with endorphins to cope with being pushed to its physical limit, the rush of dopamine for achieving a goal, there is nothing like it! Well, at least nothing else I have ever experienced. I would hazard a guess that narcotics and such substances probably produce a similar effect, but let´s not go there. I recently read that they apparently now think that endocannabinoids are the real cause of runner´s high, but whether or not that is conclusive enough to be considered a fact and the connection to exercise addiction is another question.

Without really know when, how or why I arrived at this conclusion, I have nevertheless long been certain that exercise addiction is a real thing. A couple of weeks ago, I began a google search to substantiate this view. Specifically, I was looking to see if endorphins were the culprits or if there was some other chemical or endocrine explanation for it. I intended to google "exercise addiction endorphin". I think I got as far as "exercise a..." and google predicted what I was searching for! I hit enter and was amazed by the number of hits "exercise addiction" got. I suppose if I had thought about it, I should not have been amazed. After all, I was convinced that it was a real thing. Why shouldn´t there be hundred of articles, forums, blogs, and what-not about it? What really surprised me was how seriously it was regarded. One article discussed exercise addiction together with substance abuse such as alcohol and drug addictions, but categorised it as a behavioural addiction, that being the same category as eating disorders like bulimia and anorexia. That amused me. It was of course emphasized that exercise in itself is healthy and regular exercise is encouraged. People were nevertheless advised to ask themselves several questions to evaluated the health of their attitude towards their work out. Questions of the following nature, which I inevitably found myself answering as I read them:

- Do you feel restless or depressed if unable to exercise every day? Hmm... no, because I don´t generally exercise every day. But change the question to 'do you feel restless or depressed if unable to exercise on the days when you usually exercise?' and it would be a big fat YES!

- Would it bother you if you could not exercise for a day? Nope. A week? I think I might go crazy! A month, a year? Seriously, I have no idea how I would cope. But that is also partly because it would mean that I would have to give up cakes and muffins and chocolate and jelly beans and basically eating as much of what I want, when I want!

The most telling sign though, is the social hindrance that my attitude towards exercise had become. I caught myself telling a friend whom I had not seen in a few weeks that I did not have time to meet her because I was planning on working out on the days when we could have met. I did not tell her this at the time though. I just said I was busy. When I put down the phone, I realised what I had just done. I was putting exercise above my friendship and my social life. That, I think, if nothing else is a clear sign of an addiction. So I called her right back and told her that I was free after all.

I am mindful of it now, and so am trying to keep such anti-social behaviour under control, although I must confess that it has happened since. I do still plan my social calendar around my work-out calendar. I make exceptions and compromise on certain work-out days, but then try to compensate on other days. I make sure that I have at least one or two days of rest a week, and try to alternate with the high intensity work outs with less intense ones for a bit of balance.

The fact that I am in the grips of exercise addiction, or at least a very severe case of obsession became all the more clear to me (not that I needed much more convincing) when I sprained my ankle a couple of weeks ago. It was quite a bad sprain and left me completely exercise-incapacitated for at least a week. After a week, I began with certain exercises, all the while with my foot tightly bound in a compression bandage, and treated with ice immediately after, followed by increased hobbling around the next day - all of which signs that I really should not have been doing the work-outs I was doing at all. I went ahead anyway. Because the thought of not working out was incomprehensible. I was so restless that it felt like my bones were itching!

Anyway, I wonder if the endorphins, dopamine and whatever combination is triggers memory associations because since this exercise obsession has begun, memories of the times I have had somewhat similar experiences in the past has started coming back to me. Some of which I have not thought about for the longest time.