Feel Anxious When You Exercise? Here's What to Do!

Feel Anxious When You Exercise? Here's What to Do!

If you experience lots of anxiety during or after exercising, or if you're avoiding exercising altogether, this episode is going to be super helpful for you!

Before we dig into it, let's start off with a big truth! Exercise doesn't cause anxiety. I get it, I know it doesn't feel that way. Exercise can mimic all those symptoms you feel when you're anxious - your heart races, you're short of breath, maybe you feel dizzy or uncomfortable. Because these sensations feel familiar, your immediate reaction is to say "nope!" and avoid them. How we respond to those thoughts and feelings, and what we do next is the important part.

It's also super helpful to remember that the sensations you’re experiencing when or after you're exercising are natural and they make sense! It’s truly your body taking care of you and doing what it’s designed to do.

Okay, let's jump into some tips that will be helpful for you.

1. Ditch the Heart Rate Monitoring: If you find yourself obsessing over your heart rate during exercise, consider ditching the fitness watch or at least removing the heart rate monitor from it. I know it’s easier said than done, but checking and keeping track of your heart rate isn't useful information and it's only keeping you feeling anxious.
   

2. Start Small: If exercising feels tough right now because of fear or discomfort, it's perfectly fine. Try going for a walk, doing some relaxed yoga, or even light lifting or stretching. Starting small allows you to gradually build tolerance to discomfort, and if desired, you can progressively increase the intensity of your workouts. And remember, exercise should be about feeling good and supporting your body, not pushing yourself too hard.
   

3. Find a Partner!: Exercising with a partner (or pet) can provide support and make it easier to get back into exercising, especially if doing it alone is challenging right now. This can be a helpful step in getting you back to exercising and something that you won’t always need. You will get to a place where you trust you and your body again.
   

4. Validate Your Feelings: When you're feeling all the things, a racing heart, palpitations, dizziness... it can be tempting to try and talk logic into your brain in an attempt to calm down. Instead, slow down, let yourself be with the feelings that come up and do your best to get back to it, or if you need to, take a break. Gentleness and compassion goes a long way in the recovery journey!
   

5. Listen to Your Body: If exercise feels really hard right now, it can be because your system actually needs to slow things down. It may be helpful to focus on walking, especially in nature, and doing things to support your nervous system like drinking more water, eating nourishing meals, or reducing your caffeine or alcohol intake.

I know exercising and facing anxiety is really tricky and hard, but there are so many benefits, and these benefits will help you on your journey to heal and recover. Exercising is a great way to practice mindfulness, to practice tolerating discomfort, and helps to relieve stress. So, although it might be hard, I promise it's worth it. Make sure to listen to the full episode for all the helpful tips.

You’re so much stronger and more capable than you think you are! You can absolutely handle all the feelings, after all, you always have.

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Struggling with lots of what-if thoughts that lead to some really uncomfortable sensations and symptoms? Sign up for my 90-minute masterclass and learn how to approach your thoughts and feelings in a healthy (and very practical) way so that you can get freedom from them!

Feeling like you've tried everything but you're still struggling with lots of anxious thoughts, symptoms, panic attacks, and fears? Take my FREE 60-minute masterclass today and learn 5 shifts that will actually help you to overcome anxiety, panic disorder, and agoraphobia. And I promise, you won't hear any of the usual stuff from me - like doing breathing exercises, grounding practices, cutting out caffeine, and doing more exposures. Let's get you the peace and freedom you deserve without it being so hard!

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TRANSCRIPT

Shannon Jackson 00:02

Welcome to a healthy push Podcast. I'm Shannon Jackson former anxiety sufferer turned adventure mom and anxiety recovery coach. I struggled with anxiety, panic disorder and agoraphobia for 15 years. And now I help people to push past the stuff that I used to struggle with. Each week, I'll be sharing real and honest conversations, along with actionable and practical steps that you can take to help you push past your anxious thoughts, the symptoms, panic and fears. Welcome, you're right, we're meant to be.

Alright, if you experience lots of anxiety during or after exercise, or if you're avoiding exercise altogether, this episode is going to be super helpful for you. So let's just start with what exercise anxiety can look like. So it typically looks something like this, you begin to exercise, you start to feel very normal sensations and symptoms, like your heart racing are feeling short of breath. And you quickly become alarmed by the sensations and symptoms, you maybe start thinking about how you feel and what the feelings could lead to. And then before you know it, you are having a ton of feelings, a ton of thoughts, and you've stopped exercising altogether. Because you've convinced yourself that what you're experiencing is really bad and dangerous. Or it's going to lead to something really bad or dangerous. Or maybe for you the anxiety you experience with exercise comes after you exercise, you may finish exercising and feel fatigued or tired sore and pain or discomfort. And this triggers lots of thoughts and maybe even more feelings that have you convinced there's something wrong, and that what you're feeling is dangerous. Or it's more than quote, just anxiety. Or maybe for you, you aren't exercising at all, because you don't want to feel any of the discomfort. Or maybe for you, it's because it's really hard to get to a gym or to get outside and exercise by yourself or even with others. So I want to dive into all of it. And I want to share a lot of helpful things with you.

And I want to start off with a really big important truth. And it's that exercise does not cause anxiety. And you might be like, I'm wrong, Shannon it does. And trust me, I get it. But here's the truth. Exercise is simply mimicking feelings that are very similar to those you feel with anxiety and panic, like racing heart, shortness of breath, dizziness, pain, discomfort. And because you're all too familiar with these sensations and symptoms, when you feel them, your automatic response is nope, get me away from these feelings, even though they're natural and normal for your body to be experiencing your responses. Ah, I know what this is, this feels just like how I feel when I'm anxious. And so you try to push away the feelings, you try to get rid of them, you try to make them stop, you try not to panic. And all of this creates even more anxiety. So I won't go into this too much. But I just want to mention here, caffeine is a stimulant, so sure, it might lead to more feelings. But when you're struggling with an anxiety disorder, because you're so used to being hypersensitive to your feelings, when you start to feel very normal sensations, and even symptoms like your heart rate increasing, feeling a bit jittery, you can tend to feel like oh gosh, ah, I know what this is, this is gonna lead to anxiety or a panic attack. And so you want to stop it, get rid of it, push it away, right. So very similar to exercise. So simply what I'm trying to say is exercise doesn't cause anxiety. And it's not the problem. And this is a really helpful thing to recognize the big problem, or at least a big problem, I should say, because it's not all of it, is how you're responding to your thoughts, the sensations, the symptoms when it comes to anxiety when it comes to exercise. I know I talk a lot about the response, but it's because it's so freakin important. So we'll talk more about that in a bit.

But I want to chat real quick about something that you might already know. But it's really important to chat about. And I'm not going to get too sciency with you because it's really not necessary, but it's important to know. So exercise stimulates the sympathetic nervous system, which is the same system that is stimulated when you feel anxious. And when our sympathetic nervous system is stimulated, our heart rate naturally begins to increase our blood flow increases our lungs take in more oxygen, which causes our breathing DBL faster and deeper. These are just some highlights, right? There's lots more physiologically that occurs in your body but these are some big ones to be aware of. And these things are happening very naturally. and your body is doing exactly what it's designed to do. But when you struggle with disordered anxiety and panic, you can very easily and quickly interpret these things as being problematic or even dangerous, because you're probably very accustomed to feeling them because you're very sensitized to what's going on in your body and your thoughts and your feelings. So this all flows nicely into the next thing that I want to chat about. And I know that this might sound really silly and basic, but it's really helpful to just start with the acknowledgement that the sensations that you're experiencing when you exercise are natural, and it makes sense to be experiencing them. It's truly your body doing what it's designed to do. And it's taking care of you. And like a lot of things with anxiety recovery, what's really helpful is to practice slowing down and having a healthy response to what you're feeling in your body. So whether you experience sensations, symptoms or discomfort during or after exercise, it's helpful to acknowledge what you're feeling while resisting trying to make it stop. And I know that this is really hard. This is why anxiety recovery is really hard is because you're so used to being in tune with what's going on in with your body being on high alert being sensitized your feelings, and it's really hard to slow things down. And to acknowledge, okay, it maybe makes sense to feel this way and to allow yourself to actually feel it. So when you're exercising. And I will argue even when you're anxious, you don't need to slow your heart rate down. You don't need to try to get your breathing back to quote normal. And a quick sidenote right, it is normal for your breathing to be quicker and deeper when you're exercising, you also don't need to find a way to support your weak or wobbly legs, they are so very strong and capable of supporting you. You don't need to do anything to help your body like your body will do its job and you need to step away and let it do its thing. Because it's very good at doing what it's designed to do. Especially without your help. And this is all true to for how you feel after you exercise. simply acknowledging that it makes sense that you feel tired or sore or in pain or a bit uncomfortable. And practicing allowing yourself to be with those feelings rather than trying to make them go away or make yourself feel better. And yeah, this is really hard work, right. This is why anxiety recovery is really hard is slowing down and making space and letting yourself feel because you're so used to probably doing the opposite. So be gentle with yourself, right. But I want to jump into some more tips that I think will be really helpful for you.

And this first one might be a bit hard to hear, you might feel called out and you might feel like oh my gosh, I just want to roll my eyes. But it's really important, and I want to talk about it. So if you're somebody who finds yourself often obsessing and checking your heart rate, please do yourself a favor and ditch the fitness watch and stop checking your heart rate. Of course, unless you monitor it for a condition like Potts or, or condition that warrants you checking it. But that's not who I'm talking to here. So you're monitoring your heart rate, right? Because you're wanting to make sure that you're okay, and that you're going to be okay and that it's not too high. And you think that it's helpful information. But here's the thing, knowing what your heart rate is, while you're exercising just isn't valuable information. And this is true too, for when you're anxious, it's not valuable information. And it will only increase feelings of anxiety. I know that this is easier said than done. But checking and keeping track of your heart rate is only going to keep you feeling anxious. And I'm not saying you know, ditch the watch altogether. If you'd like to count your steps, cool, that's fine. But remove the heart rate monitor from it because it is just not helpful. You know, remember when I said your body is doing what it's designed to do. There are two parts of this when it comes to your heart rate. One, of course your heart rate is going to be high when you're exercising, I hope it is otherwise you might have some problems. And too, of course, your heart rate is high when you check it because you're feeling anxious. You know, I know it's hard, but when you get caught in this loop of I gotta check my heart rate to make sure it's okay. You're typically feeling anxious and so it's going to be high and then when you see it's high, it just causes you to spiral. So if this is you, I would really encourage like ditch the watch ditch the heartrate monitor. You know, I wear a fitness watch when I'm exercising. I often wear it when I'm hiking, biking, skiing, and I do this to keep track of steps and just to look at my stats. And sometimes I'll see you know my heart rates in the one six She's one seven knees. And what does this tell me? Well, it tells me that my heart really kicked some butt and that it did its job. And that I can be miles and miles on a mountain. And my heart rate can be incredibly high. And I can feel short of breath, and I can feel fatigued. And it all makes sense, because my body is doing what it's designed to do. And my body is incredibly strong and incredibly powerful. And honestly, I don't ever check my heart rate, I, you know, I noticed it because my husband and I were hiking once and he said, while my heart rate is blah, blah, blah, and I was like, Oh, interesting. Like, I never looked at that. And mine was really high, too, which made sense that we were on a really steep incline, going for quite a while. But you know, it's really just acknowledging my body is doing what it's designed to do. My, of course, my heart rate is high. That makes sense. Okay, so this next one, I really want to chat about when you're feeling all the things are racing, heart palpitations, dizziness, shortness of breath, weakness, like I can go on and on and on. Don't try to talk logic into your brain and try to force yourself to calm down. And what I mean by this is saying things like, I'm fine, I'm okay, I know that this can't hurt me, I know, I'm not going to have a heart attack. I know, I'm not going to die. I'm okay. You know, because I'm sure you've come to see this. No amount of logic, you try to talk into yourself and your brain is going to be enough and actually calm you down. And what this does really is it just invalidates what you're feeling what you're experiencing. And you often just beat yourself up about it. So instead, really try to validate what you're feeling like, actually let yourself be with the feelings. You can say something like this yourself. I'm feeling really anxious. And Dang, this sucks. Like, I'm really scared. But what I'm feeling is in dangerous, I'm going to work through this. I've always worked through this. And then do your best to get back to what you're doing, like walking, lifting, etc. But you know, it's also okay, if you feel like you need a break, you can take a break, you can slow down, you can sit down, you can lay down, you can put your feet up, you can just pause and maybe decide, okay, I'm done for now, like, and that's okay, too. You can let yourself be done without trying to force or pressure yourself to finish the workout, like gentleness and compassion goes a long way in the recovery journey. But yeah, less trying to talk logic into the sensations of symptoms into your brain trying to just, you know, tell yourself, I'm fine. I'm not going to have a heart attack. Like, you're not going to talk that logic, and especially if you're feeling anxious, so just validating making space. And I know sometimes when you're hit with the sensations and symptoms, you might think, Oh, God, what if this isn't just from exercising, and there's actually something wrong? Like, what if I actually need to do something, but if there's anything wrong, and I want you to really listen to that statement? What if this isn't just anxiety and there's something wrong? That sounds like anxiety, right? Like, you know what anxiety sounds like? You know what it feels like, you know, how it shows up? You know what it tries to convince you of? It's loud, it's repetitive it feelings, right? It says the same things over and over. So taking this diary and saying, If I'm anxious, it's okay. We don't need to figure anything out. And do your best to get back to what you're doing. But I really want to encourage right? You know what anxiety feels like? You know what it sounds like? But if ever you feel like, okay, this does feel really off. This does feel really weird. It's okay, pause, take a break, stop exercising, you, you can listen to yourself. And it's really important that you listen to yourself. Like I said, you can take a break, you can slow down, but usually when we're having that thought, and we're going back and forth, is it from exercise? Is there actually something wrong? That's anxiety, right? It sounds a lot like anxiety, and it would be really helpful just to call out okay, hey, I'm feeling anxious is okay. And I have to mention here in Episode 78 of the podcast, I chat a lot more in depth about some symptoms like dizziness, palpitations, even depersonalization. So if you're wanting more helpful tips and insights on navigating these things, definitely check out that episode.

Okay, so the next one is you don't need to do crazy workout routines to exercise. Like if exercising is really hard for you right now, because you're really scared of the feelings. It's okay. Let's just walk or try doing some light exercise, maybe yoga, or light lifting or stretching, Pilates or yard work. Like there's always a way to do things in small ways and manageably and in ways that feel good for you. And starting small can help you to practice tolerating feelings of discomfort so that you can slowly increase the type of exercise that you're doing if you want to. But in general, right exercise doesn't have to look like you exacerbating yourself beyond what feels good for you, it doesn't have to look like you running or lifting heavy weights or doing any crazy stuff. You know, exercise is supposed to be and feel good and supportive and helpful for your system. So if it doesn't feel good and helpful and supportive, like don't force yourself to do stuff that feels like garbage. And another helpful thing, if exercise is really hard for you right now, especially doing it alone, find a partner to do it with like, ask a friend or a loved one somebody to to move with you. You know, this can be another really helpful step to getting you back to movement and exercise. And you're not always going to need this right. But if initially, you need some support to get to a place where you can build some trust with you and your body again, and you won't feel like you need somebody, like take that support, ask for that support. If you feel like you need it right now allow yourself to take it and that will be really helpful.

Okay, and another thing that I want to add is to listen to you in your body. If exercise feels really hard and nearly impossible, right now, it can be because your system actually needs to slow things down. It can be that you've been incredibly activated incredibly dysregulated for a while, and your system needs to learn how to be in stillness more. And it needs support and becoming regulated. So maybe let's just focus on walking, not even with the intention of exercise, right. But just walking, especially in nature can be incredibly helpful. doing some yoga, or just things to support your nervous system, like drinking more water, eating more nourishing meals, reducing your caffeine and alcohol intake, meditating breathing exercises, like, I don't want you to go crazy with all this because it's not necessary, like pick one thing and just be consistent with it. But sometimes our nervous system just needs to be supported on a consistent basis, so that it actually has the capacity to do some other things like exercising. And of course, they have to say this here, it's really important that you're always eating regular, balanced, nourishing meals, like not skipping meals, especially breakfast, drinking lots of water, not pushing yourself and working out beyond your capacity when you feel depleted and unwell or sick. Or when you're about to start your period or you're bleeding. You know, these are just really important things to keep in mind. Because sometimes we just push ourselves, but we don't give our bodies what it means to be able to do that work. So making sure that you're doing the simple things to support your system. So exercising is actually helpful and feels good and does what it's designed to do. So in general, I know exercising facing anxiety, right, it really comes down to exercising comes down to facing uncomfortable feelings, really allowing yourself to face anxiety. And it is tricky, and it's hard. But there are so many benefits to exercising, and the benefits will actually help you to heal and recover. Like exercise is a great way to practice mindfulness. And it's a great way to practice tolerating discomfort. And it's a great way to relieve stress and anxiety. So although it might be hard, I promise you will get so many benefits out of it.

So if you're currently struggling with exercise because of anxiety, I just want you to hear me like you are so much stronger and more capable than you think you are. And you can absolutely handle all the feelings because after all you always have but make sure to take things small and do things in a manageable way in a way that feels good for you. And I have to mention here that I have a new masterclass, and it's all on what if thoughts? And if you struggle with anxiety and exercise, you likely struggle with lots of what if thoughts like what if I panic? What if they pass out? What if something really bad happens? What if this isn't just anxiety? So I encourage if you struggle a lot with what if thoughts, this class will be so helpful for you. It's 90 minutes and I teach you how to approach your thoughts and feelings in a healthy and very practical way. So that they stopped showing up and causing all of the chaos and you can actually put that trust back within you and your body. So I'll put that link in the show notes for you if you're interested. Okay, until next time, my friend keep taking healthy action. I hope you enjoyed this episode of a healthy push. If you want more, head on over to a healthy push.com for the show notes and lots more tips, tools and inspiration that will support your recovery. And if you're hoping for me to cover a certain topic, be sure to join my Instagram community at out the push and let me know in the comments what you want to hear next