SeniorFlow Moment – Is Exercise Addictive?

“You have an evolutionary addiction to exercise.”

That’s according to Tom Rath, author of the book Eat Move Sleep. He says, “We get a natural ‘high’ when we exercise.” He doesn’t refer to addiction as it relates to the negative effects of substance abuse, that weakens or destroys our minds and bodies. He looks at addiction to exercise as a Positive.

William Glasser, MD in his book, Positive Addiction used running as an example of positive addictions. His research showed that when you do it for at least an hour a day, six days a week, that within six months, you will become addicted to the point where you experience serious withdrawal symptoms when you stop. He says that when one is running (exercising) to the point where it is addictive, one will reach a state of “euphoria, a complete loss of self, a sense of floating.” That sounds strikingly like the state of “flow” that I have written about in a number of previous articles.

Biochemists are revealing how this “flow” state or “runners high” occurs. They are learning that physical activity triggers the release of brain chemicals which literally put you into an “altered state of consciousness” — where time slows down and you have the feeling of euphoria that I referred to above. Michaly Csikszentmihalyi, author of Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience describes it as “being completely involved in an activity for its own sake.”

At that point, exercise itself becomes the source of MOTIVATION, an intrinsic motivation that requires no outside stimulus other than the activity itself. Exercise can form a positive addiction that is well worth being addicted to.

But can exercise be addictive in a negative way? Yes! And while this article is meant to look at an addiction to exercise in a positive way, there are circumstances where exercise becomes an addiction in the negative sense. There are a surprisingly large number of people who have built their lives around exercise and who exercise five and six hours a day. They exercise to the point where they are breaking down their body rather than building it up. These are not performance athletes, but are regular people who are obsessed with exercise in much the same way as those with an eating disorder. Their obsession with exercise is a psychological malady rather than a physical one.

The hardest part of exercise is the first five minutes. After a while it becomes addictive. You notice it in the way you feel when you don’t exercise.

As your appearance, your attitude, your posture, your bearing, and the energy with which you approach life, all change noticeably for the better, exercise becomes part of your identity or persona. It’s simply a part of what you do every day.

When you set up a regular exercise program for yourself, the internal and external rewards are miraculous. It’s a great feeling! IT’S ADDICTIVE!

This has been a SeniorFlow Moment. Thank you for reading. By the way, some of you may have read this before. I re-post it around this time as a reminder that the New Year is coming. If you are not moving your body in a systematic way (called exercise), start now and make it a Positive Addiction.