Training + Mental Health | Uphill Athlete

Training + Mental Health

  • Creator
    Topic
  • #46544
    Max
    Participant

    Hi all,

    Curious to hear anyone’s experiences with training/getting significantly fitter having a negative impact on Mental Health?

    For me, I started around 18 months ago, have lost ~15kg, ticked some epic climbing/mountaineering goals, health has greatly improved, happy days.

    Recently, however, I have noticed that if I DON’T do my training for the day/couple days, I have a huge store of pent-up energy that needs to be dissipated in a hard run/gym session/climb etc. I could almost describe it as anxious energy, and has a large impact on my state of mind!

    Curious to hear if anybody else has found this, and how you have managed it.

    Cheers,

    Max

  • Participant
    Mark on #46550

    Hi Max,

    I can relate to that feeling for my own part as I am someone who needs to constantly be “on the go” so taking a day off or having a light day can feel quite frustrating, especially if I think I’ve got a lot of energy leftover.

    A perspective that has helped me is something from this website (possibly from Steve or Scott): “Training is not the work that you do, it is the effect that it has on your body”. It’s important to accept that rest/recovery days are necessary so you are able to consistently do the hard workouts without overexerting or injuring yourself.

    It also reminds me that the rest/recovery days are when your body is actually “improving” (even if it feels like I’m being lazy!) because that’s when it is repairing itself for the next effort. It’s important to look at things in the round and not get too wrapped up in the mindset of “I need to work harder” because the hard work won’t have the impact you want if you don’t take the time to let your body chill out.

    Participant
    briguy on #46577

    If you’re taking a break from training, or in recovery, and you’re finding that you have a ton of energy, funnel it into something productive and/or that you enjoy.

    Four days after my 110K trail run, I had not run a step nor done any training and I found myself with some energy for other small projects (landscaping) that have been put on the backburner.
    Maybe you can find something similar.

    Participant
    Emil on #46710

    All the time
    Take a look at this book https://www.amazon.com/Spark-Revolutionary-Science-Exercise-Brain/dp/0316113514

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