site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  2yr ago (text post)   2675 thread views

Wellness Wednesday for October 12, 2022

The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:

  • Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.

  • Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.

  • Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.

  • Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).

7
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Am I supposed to feel good after exercise?

People say things like "Every time I run I feel like anxiety doesn’t exist for awhile and just feel good." or "Does anyone know exactly why it feels so fucking good to lift heavy shit above your head?? I have never felt anything like it in a gym. It is THE MOST addicting feeling I’ve possibly ever had." both quotes from random reddit comments.

I've tried both running and weight lifting in the past, and never got a huge positive psychological effect. Mostly I just feel slightly content, or just plain tired. Do some people just not have a strong positive response?

I feel much better during months when I'm exercising a lot than during months when I'm not. Less tired overall, even accounting for the more-tired periods right after a workout. But that's a long-term effect, takes a week or two to kick in when my exercise schedule changes.

I feel mildly good showering off the sweat after cardio, and mildly good in general after weightlifting, but never any feeling strong enough for the possibility of it being addictive to cross my mind.

I don't feel anything from lifting or running or swimming, but I do from high intensity whole body activity shit.

Like, running just makes me tired and grumpy but doing heavy bag sprints or rock climbing at high intensity does give me a tingle.

Running is a chore for me but I still do it to warm up. But weights feel really really good for me, even while I'm doing them (Maybe I'm not doing enough?). Afterwards, I feel really good and accomplished. I even feel more attractive afterwards (like, my face), my guess is a brain chemical tricking me. As another poster mentioned, I kind of enjoy DOMS, although the very first week I ever went to the gym, the soreness was a little too much.

I find myself somewhat enjoying the sensation of DOMS after lifting. The mild pain reminds me that I did at least one constructive thing yesterday.

The actual process of exercising is just painful and unpleasant. I have never experienced “The Pump” the way Arnie talks about though. I wish lifting was an orgasmic experience.

I have the same experience. Exercise actually makes me feel very anxious, but I still do it every day. It's just a totally sucky thing that I have to get through.

I do it because I want to continue to be able to do everything else in my life for a good long time.

I feel good but also way more irritable and annoyed after doing cardio. Kind of a weird mix of feelings

Lifting on the other hand makes me feel really good only for the first few weeks, then the feeling stops or is only very mild.

Yep. Never got a genuine good feeling out of plain exercise (running, lifting etc). I just treat those things as a good time to listen a podcast episode and get my actual physical enjoyment from more competitive sports. Used to be club volleyball, lately I got into fighting sports. The joy of outplaying an opponent in a ball sport and getting celebrated for it or just plain landing some good punches and dominating a sparring partner is quite amazing.

Do some people just not have a strong positive response?

Yes. I've spent my childhood and youth hating physical exercise. Today when I go to the gym I don't get a lifter's high either. What I do get is a sense of accomplishment: the goal is in front of you, you don't need to manage other people to achieve it and you reach it in minutes.

I don't know, I'm a pretty obsessive runner and love the sport, but I don't really get the same feelings that other people describe with any regularity. I can definitely get into a meditative state, but I usually don't. I do occasionally feel the classic runners high, but I usually don't. I pretty much never suffer from the "running sucks" sort of thing that a lot of people seem to experience. The main thing I'm addicted to is the satisfaction of building and improving, especially when it's validated with actual race performance. To that end, I love hard workouts that require discipline and fitness, but not because I actually enjoy the workout - it's the satisfaction of a job well done.

Lifting always just feels like a chore that I should do. I don't mind it, I know it's very good for me, so I make sure to fit it in, but I feel nothing about it emotionally.

When I started, I got nothing out of it for quite a while other than sore. Over the course of several months as I kept lifting and running and got healthier there were substantial psychological benefits (my anxiety has been gone for years now), but it wasn't until I was really pushing myself and seeing continuous week-over-week improvements to stamina, strength, and the scale that it became an activity that felt great and that I craved more of. It may be that you need to see some results before you get those psychological benefits, or it may just be that you're not pushing yourself hard enough to get a runner's high.

Best of luck, and keep at it.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats