First, obviously I am not talking about clinical or psychiatric anxiety, as I am not in any way qualified to say so, and mental health issues should be treated by mental health professionals.
What I am talking about by this quote (which I came across in an article about parenting/how to help kids with anxiety) is how something clicked for me. The quote:
“The most obvious way to avoid the awful feelings of anxiety is to avoid the thing that seems to be driving it … but there is another way … [movement is] the natural end of the fight/flight response. It helps to discharge the excess energy (fight or flight energy), or move the stuck energy (when the body is in a freeze state). This helps to bring the physiology back to calm, which can in turn help to bring anxious thoughts, feelings and behaviour back to calm enough.”
Despite losing a lot of weight, and building some long-lasting healthy habits, I am not someone who has ever really looked forward to regular exercise. I do it because I know it’s good for me, and I know I feel better if I do, but I never really understood why I felt better further than being able to check off a mental list of “hitting my goal.”
A lot of the time I don’t really want to exercise, and the barrier (or what I’m calling anxiety) about getting started is pretty high: I think “I will be cold/hot/sweaty,” or “I am too tired/busy/stressed” or “I don’t want to wake up early when I could sleep in.” Then, I do it anyway, and I realize that I feel better because (1) I’m proud/happy I did it and (2) all of the thoughts I had about the barriers are completely gone, and my head feels clear.
Anyway, I came across that quote and I thought it was a good way to think about it. Getting myself moving feels like something I should avoid, for a million reasons that my brain will invent, but experience shows it actually relieves the stress and tension I am feeling.
Making the change from “a walk is something I have to do” to “a walk will make me feel good” is something I’m going to be working on actively changing my mindset about over the next few weeks!
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from loseit - Lose the Fat https://www.reddit.com/r/loseit/comments/1r0v1za/anxiety_is_energy_with_nowhere_to_go_so_take_a/
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