Obsession with sports - a physical addiction similar to a drug
Last reviewed: 23.04.2024
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In modern society, every person who leads a healthy lifestyle, certainly visits the fitness center. Everyone knows that it is necessary and physically to develop one's body physically. But what happens to a person who exhausts himself with daily training, spending 5-6 hours in the gym?
Researchers at Tufts University in Massachusetts have determined that obsession with sports gives rise to physical dependence similar to that of drugs. This was confirmed experimentally when studying the behavior of laboratory rats placed in a cage with a running wheel. After a couple of weeks, the rodents were divided into two parts: heavily running in the wheel and passive. Then each two groups were divided in half: the first part was given access to food for one hour a day, for the second group - the consumption of food was not limited. Later rats were introduced "naltrexone", blocking the feeling of euphoria from the drug and causing the appearance of breaking. As a result, earlier actively running individuals experienced chills, wriggled and gnashed their teeth. Rats, not differing in zeal for physical exercises, reacted weakly to the injected substance.
Researchers believe that excessive interest in sports leads to the production of pleasure hormones - endorphins and dopamine. Athletes are able to feel the same as drug addicts when using heroin or morphine. Physicians called this phenomenon "sports addiction."
Most of us begin to exercise in a fashion. Men go to the gym to pump up muscles, and women with the hope of losing weight. And all would be nothing, if not a fine line, at the achievement of which you begin to experience ecstasy and are no longer able to stop.
At such people at a break in employment there is a physical dyscomfort and nervous disturbances. Often, these symptoms occur in those who combine a program of weight loss and strengthened physical training. Specialists have introduced the term "athletic anorexia," in which sports loads become a passionate passion. A man looks at the emaciated reflection in the mirror, but sees a fat, ugly body. Here the problem is more of a psychological nature, when out of fear of getting better or losing the acquired relief, a person wears himself out with sports loads.
It's not about a big sport, where sometimes all means are good for achieving results. Where an athlete trains on the brink of the impossible, takes not always useful supplements, he must forget about the pain and injuries. There are rules in the world of money.
It's about us with you. Look at yourself, your behavior and well-being. Maybe you have the first symptoms of "overtraining":
- fast fatigue;
- you will find it difficult to recover before the next workout;
- at rest and in the morning the heart beats fast;
- there is no appetite after training and during rest;
- muscles and joints ache;
- headache;
- nausea appears;
- suffer from insomnia;
- decreased immunity;
- there are gastrointestinal disorders.
If something like that you feel after training, then you definitely need a full rest without physical exertion.
When you easily and reluctantly refuse to eat, sleep, communicate with friends, have sex, watch your favorite program for the next trip to the gym, when sport becomes the meaning of life and pushes everything into the background, you need to sound the alarm.
In order not to get yourself into a state of obsession with sports, before starting workouts, contact a specialist to create your individual training program.
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