Exercise addiction (bigorexia)

What is exercise addiction?

Exercise addiction, or compulsive exercise, is an irrepressible need to train that the person keeps up above their health, their rest and their social life. Exercise stops being a source of wellbeing and becomes a rigid obligation: not training generates anxiety, guilt and irritability.

A particular case is bigorexia or muscle dysmorphia, in which the person perceives themselves as insufficiently muscular even when they are not, and organises their life around the gym, their diet and controlling their body. Although sport is healthy, when it becomes compulsive it achieves the opposite effect to the one it seeks.

Symptoms and warning signs

The fine line between a healthy active life and addiction lies in rigidity and in distress. These are some warning signs.

• Training despite injuries, pain or illness.
• Anxiety, guilt or irritability when not training.
• Continuously increasing the intensity or duration of exercise.
• Sacrificing work, relationships and leisure in order to train.
• Excessive preoccupation with the body, diet or supplements.
• Feeling dissatisfied with one's own body despite the results.

Causes

Exercise addiction usually rests on psychological factors such as perfectionism, low self-esteem, anxiety or the need for control. Exercise releases endorphins and produces a sense of achievement and relief that can become necessary to regulate mood.

In bigorexia, dissatisfaction with body image also plays a part, greatly fuelled by current beauty ideals and social media. In some cases sport is used to escape from emotional problems or to compensate for fragile self-esteem.

Consequences

Compulsive exercise has a clear physical cost: overuse injuries, chronic fatigue, sleep problems, hormonal alterations and, in bigorexia, added risks from extreme diets or the use of substances to increase muscle mass.

On an emotional level, anxiety, irritability and a self-esteem that is highly dependent on training and physical appearance appear. The rigidity of exercise schedules ends up affecting work, a partner and social life, generating isolation.

Treatment at Reconectar

At Reconectar we treat exercise addiction and bigorexia with an outpatient, individual and personalised approach in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, confidentially and without hospitalisation.

We work with cognitive therapy to review the relationship with the body, self-demand and the beliefs that sustain compulsive exercise, and with motivational techniques that drive change. The goal is not to give up sport, but to recover a healthy and flexible relationship with physical activity, in which exercise once again serves your wellbeing and not the other way round.