It’s pretty much taking the mind off it + whatever chemicals working out released into my brain + a sense of accomplishment for completing a task.
I don’t think training is necessarily the solution for all/most underlying problems (i take meds and also go to actual therapy) but giving yourself an hour to breathe and not think about your problems is incredibly cathartic.
Training as therapy is getting myself through the day, the more formal therapy is getting myself through many days.
It feeds my naturally obsessive tendencies. I struggle with moderation, and training/nutrition provide a somewhat socially acceptable means to BE obsessive. If I was like most men in my family and had an obsessive tendency to drink, I’d be told to go get some help.
I mean this in the most literal sense of it. I actually wrote about it in my training log yesterday. Doing an EMOM workout after just coming back from vacation and recognizing that my compulsion was to just keep pushing it further and further. I at least recognized it IN the training session and shut it down, but, in turn, that voice is ALWAYS there.
Having a family/“something to lose” has helped quite a bit. It’s helped give me a voice to fight back with, but in turn THEY are what is positive for my mental health, while the training is playing with fire.
I don’t want to further detail @planetcybertron ’s thread. If someone one day creates a mental-illness/suicide thread I’ll expand on the topic.
@deyan yes it was you I referred to.
All I’m going to say is there are about 350 million Americans. That makes 350 million brains and life situations and a wide variety of stressors that affect us differently. There are about 130 suicides per day here and the majority of them are committed by middle-aged white men. And judging from where most live, they are likely not swimming in dough. So most of these are not caused by men who lived a cushy life who didn’t know how to deal with being knocked down a few points on the socioeconomic pecking order. Many are from “fly-over country,” a term which I interpret to mean “lesser than”, not as important as the special, pretty, cosmopolitan people in the big cities.
And anyone who thinks depression or other mental illness is unique to spoiled or rich people in America is mistaken. If they set foot in poor and high-crime communities (I likely have a grand total of 20 years of exposure) they’d quickly see mental illness and anti-social behavior just by walking around.
Recently a ten-year old boy in the town next to me killed himself. He was depressed. Considering his age and town he was not higher up in society.
There are a good chunk of “deaths of despair” here, not only by suicide.
I apologize if I came across as a jerk before to you and @hankthetank89 .
I won’t derail the thread further.
Do you think that for many people, training leads to obsession, change of psyche and their values in life. For example, as I said earlier, I am not the same person. My friends and colleagues probably do not see change, but I see that many of the things that interested me I no longer pay attention to. The only thing that matters to me is my family - to be healthy and satisfied and to go to train. I no longer enjoy music, movies, entertainment so much. I am happy when I press the weight and then I feel tired or with tired muscles. And constantly read forums, who picked up how and what or training articles.
This is not normal in my opinion.
Not for me, no.
I actually enjoy when people have different opinions, and unless someone actually calls me a bad name because we have different thinking, i dont ever think bad of someone, even tho i can be seen as being a bit agressive and harsh also in my way of writing, but its never ment like that. I see it as intellectual sparing - you punch someone sometimes, and sometimes it hurts but it doesnt mean you cant respect each other and be friends.
@BrickHead knows his shit when it comes to sport, we all see that in pictures, so even if we think completely different, you are still a brother in Iron. Same goes with other topics - its just discussion.
Lifting helps me when theres actually nothing i can do to solve the problem. Helped me through basically my whole enlistment.
Damn dude you can still enjoy that stuff.
I enjoy it, but not like before. Maybe it’s because of my age, not so much my attraction to training topics that prevails over the other. There is no obstacle to combine everything. It’s just that somehow these things no longer give me pleasure in the same way. Well, when I’m somewhere on vacation with the family in a nice resort is great and we often do. But there I overeat and abuse alcohol.
THere’s a lot of evidence for the benefits of exercise for mental health
Some have even shown it to be as effective as SSRIs for some forms of depression, but of course, there are things that require medication
@T3hPwnisher This is me exactly. I am my own worst enemy in the gym. I have to be super careful with it otherwise it consumes my life. No, I don’t drink, smoke, binge eat or do drugs - BUT exercise - yeah, I do that and like a damn junkie.
Yeah I understand that as far as what you’re doing.
I meant what is that a symptom for though. The obsessive tendencies are merely the symptoms though.
Should’ve prefaced with saying you don’t have to share if you don’t want to. But obsessive behavior is a physical band-aid for whatever either continually goes on inside of us, or once did. Be it our mindset, or a combination of that and a bunch of other mental/emotional things. Bit of an intrusive question though.
I feel that they are the disease, in a similar way that one can have an obsessive disorder.
The men in my family obsess. We tend to be workaholics, when we pick up “hobbies”, we are ALL in, often before we even start. I knew all the perks of humbucker pickups before I knew how to play my first chord on guitar, haha. Moderation and balance are the struggles
Love this - this is why we can have real discussions about serious things.
I’ll say for my part, I have to do multiple things to keep my brain happy. Training goes a long way, in that respect, because it’s different than my other responsibilities. When I start feeling like I don’t have time or I don’t want to go because life is getting to me, my hole actually gets deeper. It’s hard to prioritize it, because it’s the least directly “important” thing in my day, but it gives me the mental room to do the other stuff.
@planetcybertron you do a strong job of being vulnerable on here, which looks to be helping everyone tell their story.
I can understand that.
My line of work I’m not inclined to say “no” to how someone orients their own experience.
But I do understand.
While I can understand viewing those tendencies as their own origin, I just like to ask if perspective is ever given to viewing them as a tangent.
It used to bother me being like that.
I still very much am. But it’s one of my more stronger qualities I have about myself. So much so that I made a career out of it.
Thank you very much for the thoughtful words. It means a lot to me.
I appreciate the sentiment behind your inquiry
A little bit of yes, but a great deal of no.
I think a disposition towards obsessive tendencies gets formed quite young, and solidifies through outside influences as people age.
That tendency though, can kind of be thought of to lie dormant. It isn’t until something sparks that tendency that people latch certain behaviors onto it. (Note: I’m gonna have to expand on that because it’s super vague just me looking at it.)
Same thing with like alcohol, drugs, sex, self harm, pathological behaviors, etc. They’re usually ancillary things people will gravitate towards using, that will solidify the physical obsessive behavior we can actually see.
Lifting/training is no different.
I’ll say the same for changes in the psyche. Last year I had a decent amount of stuff I was reading, but it’s relevant towards the discussion concerning the psyche/personality, but at least when it comes to that, most of any studying done actually monitors how it stays the same over someone’s lifespan, versus how it changes.
For me, I’d ask “Well does training show up as an obsessive compulsion that aids to keep someone in this mental/psychological state?” Versus a “Well how does this change someone’s mental/psychological state?”
I would also group the “values in life” part up with that as well.
You’re talking about Wales, aren’t you. Congratulations.
Since I mentioned alcohol intake, I think that, for example, I do not have a long period in which I have not drunk to see if the results of training will be better. In my opinion, I should not drink for several months in order to see a real result and to be able to have a basis for comparison. Because alcohol helps store fat, interferes with protein synthesis, and interferes with energy. Perhaps this is one of the biggest enemies of weightlifting and bodybuilding.
And while I was answering you, you deleted the opinion 
I understand the feelings you posted. I will say you didn’t have to retract what you said.
Apologies, I just wasn’t sure if I was mumbling nonsense. I deleted it and instantly wanted to undo the deletion. Here’s a repost…
I went to watch my country qualify for the World Cup last night for the first time in 64 years, I had a fantastic time. A couple of drinks, I ate a ton of McDonalds, and now, I’m skipping the gym today. All I can think about is how this is affecting my training. It’s not at the level of just feeling a bit shitty 'cause I broke a little discipline - my day is now filled with genuine guilt and overthinking how all this will affect my training even though the rational side of my mind is “It’s one effing day”. I know this is not healthy. I will remember last night for the rest of my life, I will never think about how I skipped the gym that one time years from now. I think we all have to check ourselves from time to time.
I’m the kind of guy that at my worst would have to get in and out of the bath 20 times because my foot touched the side of something or I looked at a particular object, really stupid stuff that would make no sense to the majority of people. I’m much better now and the gym has helped an unfathomable amount. My obsession to the gym is what stopped me reverting into the old me last night that would have continued drinking long into the early hours of the morning “celebrating” and probably taking drugs and constantly living in a fragile mindset. I know it’s clearly not the same for everyone but I am extremely grateful for my gym obsession and I could not possibly begin to describe how it helps me manage my mind and carries over into everything I do.