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Sport can also become a dangerous addiction
It is healthy to do sports regularly. Among other things, this reduces the risk of cardiovascular diseases. However, as with so many things in life, too much can hurt. In some people, the urge to move has become an addiction. Sport addicts even accept injuries.
Sport can become an addiction
Most experts agree that sport is healthy. Among other things, regular exercise can help to reduce the risk of cardiovascular diseases such as hypertension or heart attack. In addition, athletes usually suffer less often from obesity or obesity. But as in many areas of life, it depends on the right degree. Too much sport can hurt your health. And in some cases, he can even become addicted. When sport becomes an addiction, those affected will usually quickly become intractable if they have to give up their usual dose of sport. Occasionally, even physical symptoms such as stomach pain, functional heart problems or back pain develop. In a message from the news agency dpa experts have important information on the subject.
Sport can easily become an addiction. (Image: lassedesignen / fotolia.com) Addicts accept health damage
Heiko Ziemainz, sports psychologist from the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, reported on a patient who even got up to walk at night. He was surprised that the 40-year-old could walk at all, because the back part of his feet was already completely open and bloody. The psychologist quickly realized that the man had not only a physical, but above all a mental problem. "Sports enthusiasts are prepared to face massive damage to their health because they want their dose, that is, their sport," said Ziemainz, the Academic Director of the Institute of Sports Science and Sport. In contrast to healthy people, they train far beyond a reasonable level and even ignore injuries.
Especially runners and triathletes affected
"It is a bad disease, even if it is very rare," said Professor Jens Kleinert of the Psychological Institute of the German Sport University Cologne. Experts from the German Society for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Psychosomatics and Neurology (DGPPN) reported last year that sports addiction threatens too much sport. Particularly in runners and in triathlon addiction occurs, but also in gyms. "They do not do sport out of passion, they do not enjoy it, but they follow a compulsion. They think: If I do not do it, I'm feeling sick, "explained Kleinert. Loss of control is the main feature of addiction. As Ziemainz pointed out, the addicts' thoughts are "all day long just about how they get their" stuff ", so to speak.
Similar effects to a drug addiction
Unlike substance-related addictions such as alcoholism, excessive exercise is a behavioral craze. Shopping or Internet addiction are also counted for this. The emotional effects are similar to alcohol or illegal drugs. Thus, sufferers often lose their social environment or the profession, since they only have the sport in view. The withdrawal can manifest itself in irritability, sleep disturbances or depressive moods. Ziemainz explained how it can happen: "It's common for people to slip from a positive attachment to sport to very addictive life through very critical life events." Especially those with low self-esteem, who are perfectionist in addition, can to meet. This everyday escape, in which sports provide a break from worries and fears, is considered a frequent cause of addiction.
Sports dependence is not considered an independent disease
In the common classification for mental disorders sports dependence is not led as an independent illness. However, the treating experts distinguish between the primary and the secondary form. In the secondary form, dependence is the consequence of another underlying disease. These include obsessive-compulsive disorder, a diseased body image perception and especially the eating disorders anorexia and bulimia. Here, sport and exercise have the main function of compulsively burning and losing calories. In order to help such patients out of their discomforts such as extreme underweight, they were previously recommended to have complete abstinence from sports. Meanwhile, a rethink has begun. At the beginning of the year, the Department of Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy at the University Medical Center Freiburg started a study on outpatient sports therapy with eating disorders, which should enable them to return to a healthy way of dealing with physical activity.
Concerned psychotherapy is recommended
"The point is that the patients perceive their body and their limits better and increasingly combine sport with fun and well-being," said Professor Almut Zeeck. "They should learn that sport is not just about performance or the burning of calories, but about other things." Sport is actually something healthy, according to the senior physician: "He also has many aspects that are impaired in eating disorders "A positive influence." Among other things, he could improve the experience of the body or self-esteem. According to experts, sports enthusiasts should definitely be doing psychotherapy. According to Kleinert, these are often mixed forms of behavior therapy and psychodynamic approaches right up to psychoanalysis. Ziemanz's advice to his client to turn to a therapeutic institution led to success: "Sport is no longer the central content of his life." (Ad)