We have interviewed 25 people who have overcome struggles with the help of excercise. These stories show that excercising is one of the most powerful ways to overcome struggles of mental health.
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Iāve interviewed 25 people who have been helped by excercise, and here are the top 5 struggles that these people have overcome:
In our many years of publishing helpful mental health content, we always received questions from our readers about specific situations. While we have a lot of helpful tips to share on how to be happier, we simply canāt offer advice for every situation.
Thatās why I’ve set out to interview folks with every type of mental health struggle. My job as an interviewer is to categorize these interviews and present them in a way that is most helpful to our readers.
“My relationship with myself was pretty broken and I had no self-belief, I had low self-esteem and I resented my family.Ā It was through yoga that I found the truest feeling of comfort, self-compassion, and courage to move forward, grow as a person, and fall back in love with myself and life again.”
Struggled with:
Depression
Insomnia
Stress
Suicidal
Helped by:
Exercise
Meditation
Mindfulness
Self-Care
“When my body changed so drastically and rapidly, it broke my sense of self-identity. About a year into my weight loss, I began to experience early dissociation, depersonalization, and dissociative amnesia. I broke into two people. Me of now and her of before.”
Struggled with:
Depression
Dissociative amnesia
Helped by:
Exercise
Self-improvement
Therapy
“I wasnāt sure how to feel better for a while. People talk about āgetting helpā but thatās a blanket term and unfortunately itās not a band-aid you can just put on and suddenly be yourself again. It takes time to find the right therapist, medication if thatās what you decide to do, to find a new rhythm with family, and in my case, I really needed friends locally.”
Struggled with:
Postpartum depression
“My symptoms began immediately following a workplace shooting on Saturday, November 28, 2015, and were exasperated due to the activity of the company, the criminals, and the cops. The company treated me as if I were a criminal, the criminals attempted to kill me three additional times, and the cops (Houston Police Department Organized Crime Unit) treated me as if I was a thorn in their flesh.”
Struggled with:
Depression
Insomnia
PTSD
Stress
Helped by:
Exercise
Religion
Treatment
Volunteering
“I used to have a mindset of: āpoor meā – āIām just a victimā and ānone of this is my faultā. Eventually, I knew I had to change that narrative to one of control. I had to take accountability for the things that I could change, and be honest about the things I was doing that were making everything worse.”
“I used alcohol to deal with stress, anxiety, boredomāessentially any negative feeling that I didnāt want to experience. I was also using it to try to generate positive feelingsāto celebrate, to have fun, to socialize. Turning to alcohol for so many different reasons made it hard to control. I started by setting rules for myself, like only drinking on the weekends and only after a certain hour. But I consistently broke those rules, so they kept getting looser and looser.”
Struggled with:
Addiction
Anxiety
Depression
Helped by:
Exercise
Rehab
Self-improvement
Therapy
“At my lowest points, I was bedbound, completely reliant on loved ones, and unable to perform basic tasks. Too fatigued to walk, make myself food, or do simple jobs around the house. I was heavily medicated and for the most part, in too much mental and physical pain to properly rest or sleep.”
Struggled with:
Anxiety
Chronic pain
“A man spiked my drink and assaulted me, leading to a diagnosis of PTSD and depression. This event fundamentally changed my life, leading me into a violent relationship and a period of repression and struggle. Despite these challenges, life moved on. I got married, and had two beautiful boys, but then faced another intense period of grief, losing seven loved ones in just a few months.”
Struggled with:
Abuse
Assault
Depression
Grief
PTSD
“I finally came to grips that if I ever wanted to succeed, I would need to acknowledge my ADHD and get help. This was around the same time my son was diagnosed, and we started treating him. I talked to my doctor and started taking medication again. After a few weeks, I noticed a difference. I was finishing tasks, I was proactive and productive.”
Struggled with:
ADHD
“Physical activity calms the mind, creating a clearer state to confront and address your problems. It’s a common tendency to do the opposite when we’re depressed: lying in bed, staying inactive. But it’s crucial to break this cycle.”
Struggled with:
Anxiety
Breakup
Depression