Losing A Skill May Be A Sign

Why You Should Always Consider Your Mental Health

When we discuss exercising and mental health, the conversation tends to revolve around how beneficial exercising is for your mental health. I find that no one discusses the impact mental health can have on your exercise or how it can be used to recognise you’re struggling.

I have been trying to lose weight recently and have started running. Things were going great! I was getting better and better and able to run for twenty-five minutes without stopping a wonderful achievement.

Then I hit another rough patch in life. I struggled to find work; I had family issues. It was not bad enough that I crumbled straight away but when the stress started, whenever I went running, I was desperate to stop. I did not have the mental strength to push through the tiredness and walking became a sweet break from not just the physical effort, but the mental one as well.

I ignored this sign that something was wrong, that I needed to pace myself and consult my mental health. I did the opposite! I blamed myself and told myself I was getting lazy and fat. That I was not working hard enough, that I was failing.

I continued to be harder and harder on myself, adamant that if I worked harder or ran more then I would overcome this hump and get better. As you can imagine, this was far from what happened.

Things got worse.

Eventually, the idea of doing the idea of exercise became torture and I had to stop for a while, but I learnt a really important lesson along the way.

I was not addressing the problem; I was creating a whole new one.

Deep down I know I am capable of running that distance and my health did not deteriorate overnight. My mind caved to the intrusive thoughts which were so easily winning but the truth was, it was my mind which was not up to the task, not my body. It was overloaded with the other challenges in my life and that interrupted my ability to run.

Learning this has not improved my running, however, what it has done has given me permission to be kind to myself when my running is not quite where I want it to be. I know that pushing myself harder will not improve my skill, but make it worse.

Now when I walk, I do not curse or complain, but I enjoy the walk. I enjoy the view and appreciate that any exercise is better than none at all.

Learning signs that we are struggling are really important to our health. I know some who have more dramatic signs like shutting out the world or those who stop eating properly while others are subtle, like losing their ability to run.

When we learn our own signs and triggers then we are able to address them before they get worse and maintain our own welfare.

So, if suddenly you can’t handle a skill that you normally can, please do not assume you’re failing. It might be the signs of a troubled mind!