It is so easy for you to walk into a gym or see a video of a person lifting weights and judge the person to be consumed with vanity. After all, most people who say they want to go the gym say they are doing it because of the looks therefore you must be right. Except in those two instances, you'd only be right in the latter one...
Lol I'm just kidding but posting gym content on the internet is for brags and we know it.
It was like that for me when I first started walking out, I wanted to be more attractive. I have had my fair bit of attraction that was based on my looks but the more I indulge the less of the initial surface-level thinking remains.
I remember being drenched in sweat training for the sports festival in Bayelsa while going through a breakup. Working on combinations on a wall pad non-stop with my teammates, I felt the weakness leaving my body with tears mixed in sweat.
Taking off my groves and seeing my knuckles bruised up and injured as I struggled to catch my breath...it was like meditation. I can't focus on all the hurt and pain I feel inside, it just comes and goes.
The one emotion related to the ended relationship I couldn't get over was how inadequate I was. Because of all the things, I was too afraid to say because I was scared life would punch me in the face didn't mean much because I could take hard punches and I was doing that all day.
There are many ways to reach enlightenment, some people find it during a therapy session others have to get decked in the face. To some people, it's trauma while to others, it's peace.
Cryotherapy
I'm in a very playful mood while writing this post. Cryotherapy is using cold to fix things but that's what I'm coining any therapy that makes you cry.
I used to see therapy as corny and only "those" types of people go there. People who were so soft they couldn't hold their life together. The was when I was sure I would become a Neurosurgeon.
I was in my Ben Carson mode I guess.
Now that I've realized that my fascination with the brain is not in the structure or its physiology but in the fact that it houses the mind. I'm in love with how people process thoughts and I like to see how they reach certain places.
The most interesting thing I have found out about mental health is its relationship with exercise. The connection between these two aspects of health has been described as complex, but I don't think it is complex at all.
I don't think you can keep yourself down for too long when you are lifting yourself up. Of course, I realize that life is in the grey area nothing is here of there. This is why I want to explore the ways in which exercise can be therapeutic.
Lets Walk
I'm developing my own methods and ways of going about things and one thing I plan on trying is going on a walk with my patients/clients. This looks way less abusive than telling them to walk on a treadmill while I take their consult.
This was what Dr Jennifer Cater does with her patients.
Every research article I have seen online says that while the effects of exercise on those struggling might be variable in different groups, it is overwhelmingly positive, especially for those who have anxiety or depression.
The issue is that most professionals have not started using it as part of their treatment. While there is no exact data on this what I know for sure is that when we studied psychiatry there was no extensive lecture on effective exercises.
The worst part of all this is that not only are people losing their minds in modern times, but they are also losing their bodies. Depression and suicidality have reached their highest levels in recent times coupled with the overweight crisis who knows how many birds we would be killed with one stone?
Well, when it comes to being overweight it probably is more than just doing cardio or carrying weights there is a lot of dieting involved but what eventually happens when you put a person in a healthy gym, they eventually start caring about their diet too.
Draw Backs
But let's cut the shit for a moment. I am not blind to the downsides of toxic gym culture. We just watched a Jubilee video where Fitness Influencers had a talk with fat men.
In that video, we saw just how bad the mentality around the gym could elicit. People don't fit in any mold you try to make for them and people like Myron from Fresh and Fit could never accept that. Wouldn't life be so easy to figure out if people could stay still and be a monolith?
In the gym, there are those who abuse steroids and develop body dysmorphia and in so doing set a bad example for people trying to run away from problems of the mind.
The gym has also become a place where people show up completely naked in a bid to sell their explicit content online. it is a place of false accusations and harassment. This might be why professionals in mental health are not quick to endorse fitness.
The final destination we are heading to is a place where we can go to the gym and come out feeling like a better version of ourselves rather than questioning our choices to partake in the activity.
I look forward to therapy sessions that happen in the gyms where we don't have to question the process because the results are so clear. Hopefully, we might be one step closer and by doing so save lives.
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