Addicted to running: what to do

Health is very important and so is at least 30 minutes of exercise daily. For many people a reason to start running. Then when you start running for longer than 30 minutes you can experience the runners' high. This is the point when running is no longer hard. Your legs suddenly seem lighter and you feel like you can go on endlessly, or at least for quite a while. Some people do this as well and become addicted to running.

Are you afraid you are addicted to running? Then continue reading this blog to see what you can do about it.

Running is healthy

That you love running is not surprising in itself. After all, running has all kinds of health benefits, such as:

• Better mood
• You can learn better
• Your memory gets better
• In older age, it prevents/delays mental decline
• Losing Weight
• Stronger bones
• Lower blood pressure
• Lower cholesterol
• 30% reduced risk of premature death from cardiovascular disease.
• Extension of lifespan by 3 years if you run less than 50 minutes per week.

If you run more than those 50 minutes a week, the benefits remain the same. In itself, it is not a problem if you run 2-3 hours weekly, but there is a limit you reach after which it becomes unhealthy to run.

Running is unhealthy

However, do you run more than 40 kilometers per week per week? Then running is not necessarily healthier, but even unhealthier. The disadvantages of running are then:

• Thickening of the heart
• Scar tissue on the heart
• Tremor
• Heart arrhythmia
• Greater risk of osteoarthritis between the ages of 45 and 55.
• Too many free radicals released and bind to your cholesterol, actually causing plaque formation. (This happens after the first hour of running)

Addicted to running: Why?

As mentioned in the introduction, running can lead to a runners high. Exercise activates the dopamine system. This is probably related to the hunting we used to have to do.

We are an animal species that can run for an incredibly long time and we used that tactic to tire animals after which they were easy to catch. Have you ever noticed that your dog tires faster than you when playing?

The runner's high may be the high you used to get as a human to keep going when our prey was not yet tired enough. This pleasurable feeling kept the hunt fun and kept our ancestor from giving up.

Now this feeling makes you walk on for another 10 minutes, or an hour.

In addition, your environment often reacts positively at first when you start running. After all, it's good for your health. You'll probably start to look better, too, and so you only get more incentive to keep running especially.

In the process, dopamine reduces feelings of stress. Therefore, during tense moments, you can quickly put on your running shoes to escape that stress.

Running can also quickly turn into a habit as a result.

The origins of addiction therefore run as follows:

Stage 1: You begin running recreationally.

Stage 2: You start running more beyond the point where it promotes your mental and physical health, but it is not yet unhealthy.

Stage 3: You run even more and it starts to become problematic now, after an injury it is difficult to keep rest and your social contacts suffer.

Stage 4: You are totally addicted to running, your environment can no longer slow you down.

Consequences of a running addiction

Besides the physical consequences of too much running, there are also social and mental consequences of too much running.

For example, you can get caught in the spiral of addiction because of the feelings of guilt you experience when you skip a “workout.” To avoid this unpleasant feeling, you keep running.

Research shows that people who are addicted to running spend less time with their families than people who are not addicted. Of course, this is also because running itself takes time. In that regard, you can often maintain relationships with family better if you are addicted to medication or drugs.

Unfortunately, people addicted to running do not always recognize their addiction. A study conducted in 1990 showed that the partner often indicates that someone is addicted to running, while the addict does not recognize it at all.

In particular, men of women who run are more likely to recognize addiction than the woman herself. Women also tend to score higher on the dependency score for this addiction than men.

This is also because women want more control over their bodies, without having to change their diets to do so. Exercising more for the figure they want is then often seen as the solution.

In addition, addiction can become a type of compulsive disorder .

Addiction leads to a lower perceived quality of life. In addition, both men and women may experience symptoms of depression.

Running addiction treatment: hypnosis

Running addiction is generally treated with cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) from previous studies we know that the effects of CBT are enhanced if the therapy takes place while the client is under hypnosis.

First, it must be determined which stage the addict is in, such as stage 3 or 4. This can influence the treatment. In addition, it’s important to determine whether the running addiction co-occurs with another disorder, such as an eating disorder, drug addiction, or alcohol addiction (you’d be surprised how often these can co-occur).

Recognize and stop automatic thoughts

Since losing weight is often one of the biggest motivators for taking up running—before this spirals out of control into an addiction—it’s important to first recognize the automatic thoughts that fuel the addiction.

During hypnosis, for example, you can visualize a moment right before you go running. During that visualization, you also explore what thoughts you often have before putting on the running shoes. Thoughts such as:

"I need to control my body."

"Running is always good."

"I need to take a run now to calm down."

By recognizing these types of automatic thoughts, you can intervene at a moment's notice. For example, did you already run that day? Then a second session is not necessary to calm down, for that you can use other techniques.

Breaking the Ritual

Before running, chances are you have a small unconscious ritual. During hypnosis, you can check the steps in this ritual, such as first putting your hair in a ponytail. Setting a route and the like and breaking this ritual.

Breaking the ritual can be done, for example, by completely reversing the ritual during a visualization. This can also change this in "real" life, making you run less compulsively.

Finding out beliefs that cause running

In addition to these types of automatic thoughts for running, there are also beliefs that cause you to run too much. These can be beliefs about running itself, or just beliefs about your work and family life that create stress which triggers you to run.

During hypnosis, it is possible to figure out these beliefs. This can be done, for example, through regression. Then you go back to the moment when your belief arose that running is the solution to everything.

Or go back to moments of beliefs that cause stress.

During such a regression, you can look at that moment with more distance. That distance alone can change beliefs. In addition, the hypnotherapist helps you create new beliefs that cause you to stress less or reduce stress in a different way than running.

Finding other sports instead of running

Since running is not necessarily unhealthy, but especially the amount of running should be reduced, sometimes it is enough to find just another sport other than running to exercise in a healthy way.

Instead of running, you can go swimming, for example.

Running and training sessions can also be alternated with meditation or yoga. These are two other effective techniques that help you calm down during periods of stress. Moreover, they are less intense, which means the amount of running you do falls back into the healthy category of Phase 1.

Relaxation Techniques

Are you running away from your stress? If so, the hypnotherapist can also help you learn relaxation techniques. While visualizing stressful events, you'll practice applying those techniques directly so you're not wildly searching around for those running shoes.

This can include, for example, breathing techniques and techniques for consciously relaxing your muscles, such as a mindfulness body scan.

You will also receive homework to keep your stress levels at acceptable levels throughout the day.

After all, running is supposed to be fun having an addiction is really not nice.

Would you like to learn more about mental techniques to help yourself or others? Then come to a workshop or check out the training programs offered by the Hypnosis Institute of the Netherlands.

Sources:

http://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2016/09/14/493803246/is-running-good-or-bad-for-your-health

https://www.active.com/health/articles/why-too-much-running-is-bad-for-your-health

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/nur.4770130404/full

http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/ben/cpd/2014/00000020/00000025/art00008