A recent goal of mine has been to exercise more, and this includes at least 30 minutes of exercise on most days of the week. The thought soon occured to me as to whether exercise could help with my hair pulling habit.
My Experience
I find it hard to focus a lot since I spend much of my time writing. At times I just can’t get anything done, so I start to exercise. Exercise completely takes my mind off everything, and I don’t have any pulling urges while I’m doing it. But I also think that it can help afterwards.
After exercising I feel that I am a lot more focused. I tend to just get on with things that need doing, rather than sitting around and procrastinating or worrying about it. And I don’t know about you, but focusing is one of the things that really helps me combat my trich.
Other Experience
I read a forum post about this at Daily Strength forums and people claim that exercise really does help with the hair pulling habit. Whether it is as stress-relief, or a distraction, it seems that exercise has the power to keep urges at bay at least in the short-term after exercising.
The flip side is that it can be very hard to stick to an exercise routine. I think that the way my brain is programmed to function makes it hard to stick to anything. So if you want to try exercise as a way of helping trich then I recommend starting with small goals and building up slowly.
Does exercise help to stop you from pulling your hair? Does it de-stress you or help you focus?
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My name's Penny, and I started OnTrich (a trichotillomania blog) to try and raise awareness about hair pulling, and also as a way to help me deal with my own pulling. I'm a 23 year old girl from the UK and I've been pulling for 13 years. Get in touch if you want to chat or need any help - I love meeting people here.
Hi, I found exercise does help because it increases my confidence, but like you it’s hard for me to stick with it. I tend to want instant gratification so when I work out I go hard and fast, this burns me out so I stop, but then the cycle starts all over again. I have a very difficult time being slow and steady. My whole life is based on impulsiveness.
Hey! You are too true. There aren’t enough trichsters who blog. I’m glad you found me (however you did haha) so that I can follow your blog as well.
As for me, exercising has always helped. I played softball throughout highschool and during and after practice, my mind was elsewhere. Such an stress relief! Too bad I don’t seem to have the time for it anymore. =(
Thanks for your comments. I understand what you mean about exercise. I am bad at sticking to it too and working on it over time. I hope we both find a way to improve on this.