My relationship with my body and exercising has always had its ups and downs. Before I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety in my final year of university, I would go through phases of exercising too much or not at all. My weight would fluctuate because of this and I began seeing myself a lot more negatively than I ever had before. 

I used to think that I wasn’t exercising if I wasn’t pushing myself to my absolute limit. If I didn’t feel like I was going to pass out from running too fast or that my knees would give in from doing too many squats, then what was the point? I wasn’t going to lose weight or tone up if I wasn’t doing this. 

This is so wrong. 

And now that I know that, I want to share with you my experiences with exercise, changes I made and how they impacted my mental health.

Changing my mindset about exercising

It’s taken me a very long time to understand that it’s okay not to push yourself really hard every day. Rest days are there for a reason and some light exercise is still good for you. 

I was lacking a lot of energy, from overworking myself and not eating the right amount of food. I thought this was the only way to get that perfect body that I needed to have to feel good.

So I’ve started eating better, with the encouragement of my boyfriend and I’ve steadily worked my way through increasing the intensity of my workouts. 

I hadn’t done loads of exercise through the winter and felt like I needed to get back on track so I tried one of those 30 day challenges in January and I was amazed at how much muscle I’d built up in that time. That was because I had done it gradually and increased in very small increments. 

That inspired me to try the Couch to 5k app and build my fitness back up. It starts super easy and you gradually run further and for longer without really noticing how well you’re improving. 

That was the best thing I’ve ever tried in terms of exercising. It built a healthy relationship between myself and exercising, and I found myself actually enjoying running, which I’d never done before. I used to think of running as a form of torture to lose weight. 

But I learned that it’s okay to start easy and work your way up, especially when you haven’t exercised for a while. Push yourself later and do it gradually. I now know that that previous mindset I had about exercising was actually so unhealthy for my mind and definitely wasn’t doing my body too good either. 

Encouragement from others

People always say that exercising helps to release endorphins and can be a big help for mental health issues. And yeah, it can. It can be a huge confidence booster too. 

For me, when I was first going through my terrible spell of depression, I didn’t want to get out of bed for anything and taking on the role of captain of the university’s ladies hockey team started to look like a bad idea. It was more stress and pressure that I knew I didn’t need. 

But actually, leading the team in training sessions and matches each week reminded me that I wasn’t just doing it for myself. I was doing it for my team and I knew if I didn’t do this right then I wasn’t doing my duty and I’d be letting a lot of people down. 

I’d committed to this role and I was determined not to be a failure in one of the sports that I’d loved for years. 

It gave me a reason to get up and a goal to aim for. It was something productive that really kept me going while I was in a dark spell and taught me that sport and exercising has a bigger impact on my mental health than I could have realised. In good ways and bad.

After having a difficult first term, I wanted to take as much action as possible to put my life back on track and I wanted to start with getting a healthy dose of that much needed exercise. I was determined to do this right and without putting too much pressure on myself. And there were a lot of people who wanted to do it with me.

My boyfriend and a lot of my friends from hockey wanted to get involved and help me pick myself back up. So they came along with me and encouraged me to get myself moving more – but in the right ways.

I discovered I enjoyed a lot more methods of exercise than I originally thought and this really helped with preventing the boredom of exercising everyday. I noticed I was laughing more while playing a game of badminton and I was happy with settling for a 30 minute yoga session instead of a full body workout. 

Doing this really improved my body image as I knew it was making a healthy difference in my weight which gave me a little boost of confidence that I needed at this time. 

Keep going

I’ve always found it hard to find a routine of exercising that suits me and that’s still something that I’m working on now. But I don’t punish myself, I just set it aside for another day and think of something else to do. I set myself flexible goals that are realistic and achievable and work around my daily routine. 

Some days I’ll wake up and I’ll want to do something else, or nothing at all. Most days when I’m working, I don’t have the energy to go but I give myself a little pep talk and try to make sure I’m exercising at least three times a week – however brief that workout may be. 

I still find it hard to be motivated to do something that is optional. I can easily sit down all day and not feel bad that I haven’t gone for a run, but I know how good I would feel if I did go. And that’s usually enough to get me in my running gear. 

When I started falling out of my exercise routine, I bought myself some wireless headphones to make my run much more enjoyable and I purchased new exercise gear. I was excited to use them and so wanted to exercise.

Find a way to make it enjoyable for you, and continue to mix things up so you stay motivated and feeling great.

Progress

My favourite thing is looking back and analysing all of the improvements I’ve made on myself over the years without even realising. I’m getting much better at focusing on only the positives when I do this too (otherwise it can become a toxic activity). 

I think back to my mindset I had with food and exercising and I love how much I’ve managed to turn it around and create a much healthier relationship with them both. 

I’ve learned that you don’t have to be the healthiest person in the world to feel good about yourself and exercising. Know your own body, listen to it and do what feels right for you. Give yourself a break every now and again. If you couldn’t run that far today or do as many sit-ups, then okay. Applaud yourself for how far you got and try again later. You’ll get there.