Playing sports might have been on your list of New Year's resolutions. By wanting to do good to your body, you can also do yourself harm. In any case, this is the conclusion of a study published in Frontiers in Psychology. Through this new study, they investigated the relationship between running, well-being and exercise addiction. Researchers have found that running to relieve stress can lead to exercise addiction. Indeed, even in Sunday runners, it is possible to show signs of addiction.
With a central issue: the notion of escape. "Escapism is a daily occurrence in humans, but little is known about its motivational underpinnings, how it affects experiences, and the psychological outcomes that flow from it," said Dr Frode Stenseng, of the university Norwegian Institute of Science and Technology, lead author of the article. Before completing: "The psychological reward of escape is reduced self-awareness, less rumination, and relief from the most pressing or stressful thoughts and emotions." »
As this study reports, there are several forms of escapism: it can act against a distraction from problems or as a search for positive experiences. In other words, adaptive escape enables the pursuit of positive experiences – scientists call it self-expansion – while maladaptive escape enables the avoidance of negative experiences – the study calls this self-suppression.
"These two forms of escapism stem from two different states of mind that help promote a positive mood or prevent a negative mood," notes the researcher. In this study, scientists analyzed data from 227 recreational runners. All completed questionnaires to indicate their escape scale and level of running addiction.
The researchers found that there were few differences between the runners. While self-suppression and self-expansion were related to exercise addiction, self-expansion was more strongly so: "Self-expansion was positively correlated with subjective well-being, whereas self-suppression was negatively related to well-being. Self-suppression was more strongly related to exercise addiction than self-expansion. The researchers claim that self-suppression was strongly linked to exercise addiction. Neither mode of escape was related to age, gender, or the amount of time a person spent running.
But, it could be a vicious cycle. “It appears that perceived lower well-being may be both a cause and a result of exercise addiction. Addiction may be driven by lower well-being while promoting it,” the study warns. And to complete: "Similarly, the experience of positive self-expansion could be a psychological motive that promotes exercise addiction. »
While further studies are needed to learn more, Dr. Stenseng assures that these "findings can enlighten people in understanding their own motivation and be used for therapeutic purposes for individuals who engage in maladaptive practice of their activity".
