How to know when movement is becoming unhealthy?

The theme of this year Mental Health Awareness Week is #Movement

How can movement boost your mental health?

• Brisk movement helps manage stress and enhances mood.
• Being involved in doing some movement helps reduce strong emotions and provides a handle on self-harm.
• Focussed and observed movement or mindfulness helps calm anxiety and surf the urge to self-harm.
• Controlled movement such as martial arts helps manage big emotions.
• Explosive movements such as in boxing helps express anger and relieve stress.
• How to know when movement is becoming unhealthy?

How to know when movement is unhealthy?

• Movement is meant to make you feel uplifted and energised. If you feel worse or are even more negative after movement, then that particular activity might not be helping your mental health.
• Some people who have negative body image or an eating disorder use movement excessively to control weight. This is unhelpful to a person’s health since it is a feature of the disorder.
• Some people have an ‘exercise addiction’ which has features of compulsivity (has to be done, sometimes to a particular routine), is excessive (leading to injury and fatigue), shows signs of withdrawal when stopped.
• Doesn’t permit recovery from a physical injury or illness since the person doesn’t adjust accordingly or take a break.
• Avoidance of exercise because of a previous bad experience (exercise phobia) or extreme social anxiety.
• Secret exercise to punish and control the body.
• Using exercise as a replacement for therapy. Whilst exercise is beneficial for a person’s mental health, most mental ill health conditions need additional help. Explore whether exercise is a coping technique rather than a method to resolve any contributory or maintaining factors.

Our Worth Warrior app was created for young people to manage negative body image, low self-worth, and related early-stage eating difficulties or disorders.

For more information and signposts to further support visit https://stem4.org.uk/eating-disorders/.