How To Identify A Gym Junkie
Illawarra Mercury
Monday September 29, 2003
IF you're putting your gym routine ahead of your work and friends and if you experience ``withdrawal" after missing a day of pavement pounding, you may be addicted to exercise.
Proposed new diagnostic criteria for exercise dependence, formulated by UK researchers and published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, are designed to separate the simply health conscious from hardcore exercise junkies. There are no existing guidelines for the diagnosis of exercise addiction in Australia but mental health experts describe exercise dependency as ``fairly common".
Head of psychiatry at Flinders University, Professor Ross Kalucy, said there was evidence that exercising released an ``internal narcotic".
He said that according to a widely accepted theory, exercising increased levels of endorphins, which acted as a reward system for the brain.
``It's kind of like a self-generated morphine," Prof Kalucy said.
``One of the theories about it is that the withdrawal from the exercise means that in effect you're withdrawing from the internal drugs."
The British research team from Cambridge and Birmingham Universities and Rotherham General Hospital interviewed 56 women about their attitudes and approach to exercising.
© 2003 Illawarra Mercury