Are You Addicted to Exercise?
Is it okay to be addicted to something that’s good for you, like exercise? If you’ve ever experienced a “runners high” after a really great workout then you know how addictive exercise can be. But, yes, even healthy behaviors can be harmful if done in excess. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) have done research on exercise addiction, defining the condition as “exercise and sports taken so far to the extreme that they have adverse psychological and physiological effects”.
According to the NIH, there is an obsessive-compulsive component to exercise addiction which makes it unhealthy. Lab tests done on rodents show that running on a wheel triggers the brain’s dopamine reward system. So, over time an athlete can crave that dopamine reward. When exercise is done in healthy amounts the reward is well-earned, but the feelings of euphoria that an exercise addict feels can propel them to exercise excessively, causing injury or illness.
