When the anxiety is at its worst, I\u2019m not present for anything. It\u2019s as if I\u2019m going through life with my hands in front of my face. It\u2019s an overwhelming and devastating feeling that is very different from what I used to think anxiety was (feeling exceedingly nervous before a public speaking gig or butterflies on the start line of a marathon, for example). It can feel like I\u2019m two different people. During \u201cnormal\u201d periods, my non-anxious self knows how irrational my anxious self is being, but my anxious self doesn\u2019t abide by reason.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Read that last sentence again. It’s so incredibly true. People with anxiety can see that their anxiety is often irrational, but when trapped in that anxiety, you can’t see the way out.<\/p>\n
I have suffered from anxiety for years. Probably the majority of my life, or at least since I was old enough to be anxious about something. At its worst, I had a doctor look at me, tap his pen against the running shoes I was wearing, and tell me that I needed to be using those shoes for their purpose and not just wearing them to walk around. At the time, I was in the middle of training for a half marathon.\u00a0 Clearly, exercise wasn’t going to work, and honestly, it was really insulting to hear that from a medical professional.<\/p>\n
Now that’s not to say that exercise doesn’t help.\u00a0 I do feel better when I’m getting the extra endorphins from exercise.\u00a0 I think I’m a happier person when I’m able to workout.\u00a0 But I’m not sure it has a huge effect on my anxiety levels.\u00a0 My anxiety is a product of screwy brain chemistry, and what works is medication.\u00a0 And I’m not ashamed of that.<\/p>\n
Current society has such a stigma against mental health medications.\u00a0 We don’t shame people for needing glasses (okay, so some kids will tease other kids with glasses, but that’s a different story).\u00a0 And what are glasses but something to correct vision that doesn’t work quite right thanks to changes completely out of our control.\u00a0 And sure, there might be some things you can do to help your vision, like taking a break from the computer every hour, but these things are very minor, and for the majority of people who need glasses, won’t help much.<\/p>\n
Medication for depression or anxiety is the same.\u00a0 Sure, there are some minor things you can do to help your situation, but often times, the issue just can’t be fixed without medication.\u00a0 Can you function without it?\u00a0 Sure, some people can.\u00a0 But for others, it is excessively challenging, to the point of being unable to get through daily functions.<\/p>\n
I’m not saying that everyone on medication for mental health needs to shout it from the rooftops.\u00a0 We all have a right to privacy, and no one has to share anything about their health with the general public.\u00a0 But we should remember that there are many people out there who take medications for their mental health, and there are many people who are too ashamed to talk to their health care providers about medications because of the stigma.\u00a0 No one should ever be ashamed of their health status.<\/p>\n
So yes.\u00a0 Exercise can help improve your mental health.\u00a0 But it’s not the only solution and for many people, it’s not the best solution.\u00a0 So if you need something more than exercise, you shouldn’t be ashamed or feel like you’ve failed in any way.\u00a0 It’s ok to not be ok.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Over the past week, I’ve seen a number of things floating around pushing the importance of exercise for your mental health. One article (which I will not link) went so far as to imply that in many cases of depression, exercise works just as well as medication. And we’ve all heard the saying “Running is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6171,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[169],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\n
Mental Health - It\u2019s not just in your head - Elbowglitter<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/elbowglitter.com\/blog\/2018\/03\/13\/mental-health-its-not-just-in-your-head\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Mental Health - It\u2019s not just in your head - Elbowglitter\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Over the past week, I’ve seen a number of things floating around pushing the importance of exercise for your mental health. One article (which I will not link) went so far as to imply that in many cases of depression, exercise works just as well as medication. 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Over the past week, I’ve seen a number of things floating around pushing the importance of exercise for your mental health. One article (which I will not link) went so far as to imply that in many cases of depression, exercise works just as well as medication. And we’ve all heard the saying “Running is cheaper than therapy.” And that’s true. Exercise is great for helping you feel better.<\/p>\n