Stress & Exercise – Time, Effort & Pain For No Gain

The title of this article certainly seems a little strange, I admit! Exercising two or three times a week is key to staying fit and strong and most of the time, any negative aspects to exercise are completely negated by the positive aspects. Yet for individuals who are enduring the harrowing mindstorms of stress, anxiety or depression, exercise is will offer little benefit, it may even deepen the torment making it one of the poorest ways to relieve stress and its related illnesses. How can this happen?

I’m sure you’ve heard the following statement over and over again: exercising regularly will help reduce stress, depression and anxiety. This is only true in part. The reason is down to the fact that certain types of exercise can deepen the mental torment. If sufferers perform the kinds of exercise that do help with stressful illnesses, any benefits gained will only last for a short period.

Exercising vigorously for around twenty minutes or so causes the body to become flooded with endorphins and this is why most people think that exercise will help to relieve stress and its related illnesses. These endorphins are neurotransmitters that produce a feeling of well-being.

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. Your physical health will benefit greatly from exercise, but it just doesn’t tackle the root cause of stressful illnesses.

Even when I was enduring a painful episode of anxiety and depression during the year 2000, I exercised as often as I could. At least two weekly sessions of training with weights. Weight-training is an example of an exercise which can exacerbate stress, depression and anxiety because the sufferer has plenty of time to ruminate about the situations and problems they are facing in life. Bike machines and treadmills I’d use to warm-up and warm-down. Exercising on these machines is easy and again, you are able to brood over issues and events.

The other exercise I did regularly was circuit-training sessions. These sessions were conducted by an instructor at an intense pace and therefore, there simply wasn’t the time for brooding over issues and events. The issue is that once the session had ended, I resorted to  the flawed modes of thought that lie at the root of stressful illnesses.

It didn’t matter that I took regular exercise, it did not prevent me from thinking in a flawed manner.

Be alert to what is going on with you when you’re exercising. Brooding over issues and problems can easily be done when you perform exercises that don’t need too much concentration. Using cross-trainers, steppers, treadmills and going for a jog are good examples. More helpful stress reduction techniques would be performing exercises that are intense or with an element of competition as you’ll need to concentrate. I got the most benefit from circuit-training, but soccer and badminton were also good.
 
The goal is to exercise without brooding over the situations and events confronting you for a short period. And of course, you’ll do your body a whole heap of good too!

The point here is to understand that exercise can only provide temporary relief. The only way to find permanent relief from your suffering is to understand and address flawed modes of thinking. Additionally, your mind will reap the rewards from addressing the root cause of stressful illnesses just as your body benefits enormously from regular exercise.

Here’s a quote that hits the nail right on the head:

“Thought can make you; thought can break you.”  – Swami Sukhabodhanada