Exercise is a type of medicine – with side effects
Exercise through sports helps fend off depression, anxiety and schizophrenia. However, excessive exercise can lead to obsessive behaviour and stress. So how do you maintain a healthy balance?
A moment of nothingness, of clearing your mind. When UvA Artificial Intelligence student Simon Stallinga runs from his home in Haarlem through the Kennemer dunes to the beach, he feels his brain activity drop to zero. The endorphins rush through his body and after a 26-kilometre run he feels a sense of satisfaction and feels at peace. “It’s as if my brain has been sorting stuff out and getting organised in the background.”
Stallinga says that exercising keeps him “sane”. Mentally fit. Now that the City of Amsterdam has been forced to cut back on mental health treatments and medication against anxiety and depression can cause side-effects and withdrawal symptoms, a renewed focus on sports and exercise could provide a solution.
Collective healthcare costs
The scientific evidence is mounting: physical activity could reduce a number of conditions, including depression, schizophrenia and anxiety, problems, which according to the Trimbos Institute, are increasingly becoming common among students. “If you need medication, you need medication”, UvA sport psychologist Yannick Balk warns. “But exercising more really does lead to people becoming healthier and can reduce collective healthcare costs. This has been scientifically proven and is certainly something to be aware of.”
Balk says this is a major issue in the scientific community. “These days people suffering with depression, for example, have access to running or walking coaches and we can actually see that this is actually a very effective form of treatment. People get physical exercise, release stress more easily and feel mentally fitter.”
However, a degree of caution should similarly be exercised because the sports and exercise treatment equally has certain side-effects on a psychological level. What are they and how can we protect ourselves against them? In other words, how can we get the benefits without incurring the costs?
Obsessive exercise
Since the start of this century, fitness has been the most practiced sport in the Netherlands. According to Statistics Netherlands, the number of gyms has continued to rise, as has the popularity of fitness – especially among young people and young adults.
“However, due to social media, obsessive behaviour is waiting in the wings”, Balk warns. Especially at the gym. De Volkskrant recently published an article about young people, who – encouraged by “fitfluencers” on TikTok – slave away every morning trying to improve their bodies. Some of them go on to develop bigorexia, a relatively new disorder that involves those suffering from it wanting to become (often unrealistically) muscular.
Doctors and psychiatrists have observed a gradual increase and, as a sports psychologist, it is also a phenomenon that Balk has to deal with. People come to him for help because they have become “obsessive about exercising”. “The body makes no distinction between physical and mental stress”, Balk says. “If you physically push yourself beyond your limits, you will even see your condition deteriorating. So you have to maintain a certain balance.”
How does doing sports and exercising stay a healthy pursuit? Balk believes that it is vital to find out what someone’s motivation is. “If people are doing it to gain recognition from others, that’s something to get started on.” He knows how tempting is can be for power athletes to compare themselves with others and also sees it in judoists, gymnasts and cyclists, given that those sports “revolve around body weight to a significant degree.” “But ultimately, recognition has to come from within”, says Balk.
Control, quantification, goals…
“It might also be a case of someone rigidly clinging to a specific goal”, Balk explains. “In such a case, it might be important to make adjustments to the goal.”
UvA student Tom Sloos knows better than anyone what exercise can do for people, given that not too long ago he was still struggling with mental problems and with being overweight. He had been feeling out of sorts and was not exactly sure what he wanted to do with his degree in Business Administration. The decision to start exercising again was a turning point in his life.
Once he started boxing, he quickly noticed changes for the better: he lost 35 kilos and his entire worldview changed. Sloos says that when people suffer from mental health problems, there is a tendency for them to lock themselves away in their own thoughts. “When I started exercising again, I immediately noticed my perception of the world expanding.”
Coaching
He jokes that this is not surprising in the least, as if you do get trapped in your own head when you’re boxing “you’ll get punched in the nose”. And if someone is still unable to stop worrying, then sport psychologist Balk says this is a sign that their underlying problems are more urgent.
How would Sloos coach someone who was exercising obsessively or felt pressure in respect of others? His top tip is for them is to shift the competition with others to a competition with themselves. “That was hugely helpful to me. There’s no point in comparing yourself to others.”
Social media
Sloos believes that we can continue to appreciate the achievements of others, whether elite athletes or people on social media. “This can equally act as a source of motivation.”
UvA philosopher and psychiatrist Damiaan Denys believes that this new relationship with exercise is a prime example of the current zeitgeist. He notes that people want to be in control of their lives and their bodies. “And so we use rules and mechanisms to make that happen. But that controllability takes something away from the spontaneity.”
He believes that people are going too far: “Walking around with technological watches, having to do ten thousand steps, taking in so much protein… It’s bizarre. People will buy an electric bike to go and lose weight at the gym. How idiotic is that? Just don’t buy an electric bike”.
Denys believes that people should ask themselves what sports and exercise are actually about. “Are they about fulfilling the need for control or about doing something fulfilling and leading a good life?” He has observed that these days it is mainly the former – which leads to continual stress. “For example, if we don’t meet our self-imposed ten thousand steps, see someone prettier than us or identify an abnormality in ourselves that can’t be corrected, which limits the feasibility of our goals.”
Competition or mindfulness
Denys feels this is very much reflected in gyms with “their instructors, equipment and people who continuously measure and compare”. This was why Rosanne Wollrabe, a UvA Master’s student of Dutch, chose yoga instead of fitness. She goes four times a week.
“Yoga isn’t competitive – it’s mindfulness”, she says. A form of awareness. “Whenever you think: hey, I’m not doing as well as that other person, then that’s actually the reason you’re there. Because that’s exactly what it’s not about.”
Wollrabe believes yoga is in stark contrast to her previous studies. “Everyone in Law is always busy trying to be more successful than the rest. It’s highly competitive and similar to a gym – it’s not relaxed at all.”
In addition to her degree, she also teaches Dutch and teaches PE to adults. “There were honestly a few fellow students who would look at me as if I’d gone downhill. Whereas I’m just trying to help people improve and get more satisfaction from that than working on De Zuidas.”
Mental problems
She gets the most out of yoga: “It’s “me time” and something I consciously chose to do, more so than a degree or a job. It makes me feel happy in a way”. Whenever she doesn’t have time to do yoga, “my mental health quickly goes downhill”.
AI student Stallinga recognises those withdrawal symptoms. When he was injured last year, he was not allowed to exercise for a week. “Well, I drove myself crazy. My mind got so clogged up.”
Wollrabe believes that video clips on social media can, to a certain extent, act as a source of motivation. “But it’s a fine line. In some ways, it’s also very damaging to your mental health and self-image.”
Stallinga adds that on top of that an awful lot on social media is fake. “Fitfluencers will spend a short time doing a very heavy workout and light themselves from above, making the shadows more visible and making them look a hundred times stronger on a video clip.” He prefers to going running through the dunes without a phone. No WhatsApp messages or social media: “It does wonders for the mind”.
