How Fitness Improved My Mental Health Pt 3
A phrase I heard in church recently stuck with me: “some tensions need to be eliminated, and some tensions need to be managed.”
Fitness and mental health correlate in a lot of different ways, and this is a tension that I regularly have to manage in my super niche corner of life (military spouse, mom of two children with adaptive needs, business owner, executive editor, extroverted introvert). The last time you read my story, I was beginning to crawl out of the dark hole PPD left me in.
Where would I assess myself in the more recent past, currently, and hopefully in the future?
We have PCS’ed TWICE (insert crying here), and I would say I have learned a lot about my capabilities to manage my fitness routine, the uncontrollable tensions of my life, and an inner “early warning system” when I know I need to ask for help.
“Sometimes mental health improvement includes fitness, and sometimes it does not.”
There have been times where fitness was too much. I noticed myself making excuses for avoiding exercise, or being ungrateful for the capabilities that my body has. I allowed myself to back off with no plans of a “comeback” or weight loss challenge, no before and after pics. No guilt around food or rest. This is a stark difference from Part 1. If my body needs to stop, I honor that.
It is education, once again, that supports creating a healthy balance with food and exercise not only for my clients but for myself. Taking advanced courses in fitness nutrition, postpartum and prenatal fitness coaching, and long term behavioral change gives me the ability to utilize evidence based practices in my own coaching and honor the body I currently exist in. If fitness and nutrition interest you, i highly recommend taking accredited courses that support evidence based practices! Don’t take someone’s word for it because they are “fit.” There are a lot of voices in the fitness and diet industries that speak outside their scope of practice, and a lot of those voices can further damage your relationship with your body without much repercussion.
Something I noticed last year was my struggle to manage the tension inside my own mind. Negative thoughts were starting to build up and I felt the desire to disappear from my roles. I was having trouble balancing my responsibilities, things I enjoyed, and the ever-changing unknowns in my life. I realized it was time to return to weekly therapy and stay. There my mental health tensions could be managed regularly. Exercise for mental health is beneficial, but it is never meant to be a replacement for mental health support. It can be obsessive and addictive, especially if you are not aware of your biases against weight loss and weight gain.
Fitness and mental health both deserve a place where the tension must be managed. Sometimes it's more fitness and sometimes we need to pay attention to the mental health portion of our lives. Sometimes mental health improvement includes fitness, and sometimes it does not. The long term goal is to manage the tension in a way that is supportive for you.
