Exercise addiction is a compulsive disorder characterised by the overwhelming urge to exercise excessively. As physical activity is often encouraged in modern society as a means of improving overall health and wellbeing, it can be difficult to diagnose exercise addiction, particularly as people vary in what they find physically challenging.

Research studies and observations from mental health professionals highlights that exercise addiction differs from extreme exercise routines in that it will adversely affect other aspects of your life, including personal relationships and work, because exercise dominates much of your daily life.

If you have exercise addiction, the enjoyment and desire to exercise has ultimately given way to an uncontrollable urge to take part in physical activity. It can be experienced in conjunction with eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia, which involve an unhealthy relationship with food, exercise and body image to the extent that you can lose a dangerous amount of weight.

Because exercise addiction can exist on its own or co-exist with other mental health conditions, there are two types of exercise addiction which can be diagnosed, which are:

Primary exercise addiction - most common in men, this type of exercise addiction develops without any other psychological or behavioural addictions, so excessive exercise is the main problem requiring treatment and support.

The ‘happy’ chemicals in your brain known as endorphins that are released when you exercise, and the desire to achieve this bodily ‘high’ is what causes primary exercise addiction.  

Secondary exercise addiction – this type of exercise addiction is diagnosed if an underlying mental health condition, often an eating disorder, is the main cause of your uncontrollable urges to exercise excessively.

Eating disorders such as anorexia involve self-starvation to lose weight and can involve over-exercising to speed up the process, while bulimia is characterised by a cycle of binge eating before ridding your body of food.

Treating the cause of exercise addiction will ultimately help towards recovery from both mental health conditions, as treating exercise addiction on its own would see the main issue still present.       

While exercise addiction can be difficult to categorise, diagnosing the compulsive disorder depends less on what type of sport or physical activity you are involved in, or how complex a fitness regime is, and more about how damaging excessive exercise is to other areas of your life.

If you believe that you or someone you care about may have exercise addiction, then some or all the following symptoms may appear:

• Continuing to exercise despite physical injury or psychological issues
• Spending less time doing activities outside of exercise
• Thoughts are dominated by exercise, including planning and thinking about exercise
• Deviating from your intended exercise routine and increasing intensity
• Needing to exercise more and at a higher intensity to receive the same pleasurable ‘high’
• Feelings of withdrawal such as irritability when you are unable to exercise for a period of time

Social symptoms of exercise addiction

Because you will dedicate a significant amount of time to exercise if you have a compulsive need to do so each day, this can impact other areas of your life. You may have begun to prioritise physical activity over spending time with family and friends, and they could have started questioning why you feel the need to exercise so regularly, which could lead to conflict.

Even if people you care about want to join in on your exercise routines as way to spend time with you, you may view this as a disruption to carefully planned workouts, and you may prefer to exercise alone. This can have an adverse effect on your social life, and can make you feel increasingly isolated.

It is also likely that work or educational commitments will feel as though they are getting in the way of your ability to exercise. It can be tempting to miss university lectures, or take unpaid time off work to be able to exercise. This can have negative consequences in that it might take you longer to catch up on missed work, potentially harming your academic and career prospects.  

Psychological symptoms of exercise addiction  

When you are living with exercise addiction, emotional distress is not uncommon, especially if you have a co-existing eating disorder or other mental health condition where a negative body image or low self-esteem are symptoms.

Feelings of anxiety can often be felt if for some reason you are unable to exercise as frequently as you would like. Even for someone who exercises regularly, going one to two days without exercising may represent part of a normal routine, although if you have a compulsive urge to exercise daily, it can take as little as six hours for you to feel symptoms of anxiety such as irritability.

If you have primary exercise addiction which doesn’t involve other mental health conditions, it can be common to experience feelings of depression when forced to stop or reduce your exercise routines, perhaps due to injury or other commitments. This is because exercise is often used as a way of coping with significant amounts of stress in your life, so without exercise as an option, it may be difficult to know how else to channel your feelings.

The causes of other addictions such as substance abuse problems can help you understand why you may have developed an exercise addiction.

Because physical activity allows your body to create its own pleasurable ‘high’ in the form of brain chemicals known as endorphins and dopamine, this can become an addictive feeling that requires more frequent and higher intensity exercise in order to achieve the same effect.

This is the same process found when taking certain drugs such as cocaine or ecstasy that can produce a similar state of mind. It is when you stop exercising and the pleasurable effects of exercise wear off, much like when you stop taking a particularly drug, that feelings of withdrawal such irritability and restlessness mean you seek out exercise again as soon as possible in order to feel relief.

While the chemical release in your brain can be the cause of excessive exercise, it stands to reason that it is not the only factor which may determine whether you develop an exercise addiction.

Many people can participate in moderate or even high-levels of exercise without feeling the compulsive urge to exercise excessively. People who are believed to be most at risk of developing exercise addiction include those who feel pressure to stay in shape, such as when you are also living with an eating disorder, as well as those who embark on strict and extreme weight loss regimens.

Research also indicates that people with addictive personalities already, such as having an existing addiction to alcohol or drug abuse, are much more likely than the general population to develop a compulsive urge to exercise. This may be as a result of using exercise as a means of replacing the ‘void’ left after recovering from past addictions.

If you are diagnosed with exercise addiction, it can initially be distressing, although there are treatment options available at Priory that can help reduce your over-reliance on exercise and channel the urge to exercise into more positive behaviours.

The most important first step towards recovering from any addiction is to acknowledge that you have an unhealthy relationship with exercise, and that you are actively open to learning new techniques and thought processes to control the amount of exercise activity you partake in.

Moving to different forms of exercise, revising current workout regimes, and avoiding too many trips to the gym are beneficial to someone who tends to over exert themselves, although exercise addiction often requires targeted sessions of behavioural therapy to transform overall attitudes to exercise.

If you have a dual diagnosis of an eating disorder and exercise addiction, your treatment programme will first have to address what is causing the urge to exercise. This is because an eating disorder is likely to have symptoms of misperception, such as that doing an excessive amount of exercise will help towards losing weight.

While there are currently no prescription drugs that can help treat exercise addiction, and medication may only be prescribed if you are experiencing symptoms of depression or anxiety as a result from exercise addiction, there are several behavioural techniques that can be used.

A free initial addiction assessment with an experienced therapist allows you to discuss the best type of treatment that will benefit your unique situation. As exercise is something that is recommended for everyone as part of a healthy lifestyle, the focus on treatment for exercise addiction is to help reduce your urges to exercise excessively, rather than remove exercise from your life altogether.

While inpatient/residential treatment for the compulsive urge to exercise may involve time off from exercise while you learn to manage the condition, you will be able to incorporate it back into your daily routine when you are able to exercise in moderation again.  

Therapy treatment for primary exercise addiction - if you have primary exercise addiction, where the addiction exists on its own, then one-on-one therapy sessions with a specialist enables you to learn more effective coping techniques for dealing with the compulsive urge to exercise.

A form of talking therapy known as cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) is an action-based and problem-solving therapy where you work towards a full understanding of why you have exercise addiction and the impact it is having on your life and those close to you, as well as working towards changing dysfunctional thought patterns that may be contribution to the condition.

Therapy treatment for secondary exercise addiction - if you have an exercise addiction that co-exists with another mental health issue, which often includes eating disorders, then it is the body image issues associated with conditions such as anorexia and bulimia that can cause exercise addiction to develop.

Because of this, therapy treatment focuses on self-esteem and distorted body image issues, with individual, group therapy and nutritional counselling part of a treatment programme tailored towards the underlying reasons for why you may have developed exercise addiction.

Medications such as antidepressants and mood stabilisers may be used early in the treatment process for eating disorders, as this can help make the therapy sessions you attend more effective.

It is important to remember that recovery from exercise addiction is possible, even though the disorder can be further complicated by an eating disorder.

Severe types of exercise addiction involve lifelong management of your emotions and attitude towards physical activity, with treatment at Priory providing an effective platform for continued recovery and a healthy lifestyle.