The human brain is an intricate organ and why you do what you do, at any offered time, depends upon the scenarios and how you feel about them. To examine why you may feel anxiety after exercise, you need to look at the different theories on how people interpret experiences and feelings.
We asked a similar concern to a specialist. We invite you to check out the answer.
This is an good question and something I have recently battled with too. My understanding is this is simply a result of the shock to your central nervous system and your body’s energy reserve (glycogen stores) that gets tapped pretty hard during exercises. This is gone over in some information in the book, “High Intensity Traning the Mike Mentzer Way,” and also “Advanced Max Contraction Training”, in the Q&A section.
The solution, a minimum of for me, has been to eat more sugars immediately after my exercise and for the remainder of the day and into the next day if required. This remains in addition to my healthy diet and protein intake. I don’t mean candy or ice cream. I mean fruit like peaches, pears, strawberries. I likewise drink Gatorade or juice. This has actually considerably reduced that stress and anxiety feeling, or butterflies in the stomach or perhaps a feeling of queasiness I’ve had once in a while from immediately after my workout to some days later on. These foods seem to assist the body to recover quicker.
The other thing might be that you’re just overtraining. This would make good sense because of your statement that, I abstained from lifting weights for many weeks and felt myself getting better …
Personally, I have lowered the frequency of my exercises, and that has helped. And I continue to have gained in the health club.
How the Brain Processes Experience
When you experience a promoting occasion, your brain begins to the procedure and organize the details into psychological and physiological responses. Your brain has centers that handle psychological experiences. The thalamus and amygdala are connected with emotion as well as the autonomic nervous system. Hence, when your body responds instantly to some occasion, such as exercise, a flood of feelings might be set off.
Cannon Theory
In looking at why you might feel anxious after exercise, you need to consider your body’s natural reaction to physiological signals. In 1927, Walter Cannon created his own theory of psychological action. He thought that you experience a situation, then feel a feeling that leads to a physiological effect. In the case of exercise, the circumstance is one of movement and effort, which might result in anxiety, following Cannon’s theory, since the physiological response is to run away from danger when muscles are tense and in use.
James-Lange Theory
James Lange proposed rather a different theory of psychological response in 1884. He was dealing with psychologist William James, and together they postulated the idea that the arousal associated with an event triggers humans to translate an emotion. So in the case of workout, you would feel nervous if you were to misinterpret the arousal and muscle use brought on my workout. In a sense, you would have an incorrect exercise for the requirement to “fight or flight,” like a challenged animal, hence developing stress and anxiety.
Cognition and Emotions
Both the Cannon Theory and the James-Lange Theory recommend that human bodies signify a reaction before the mind can capture up. Cognitive theorists such as Richard Lazarus believe that after an event, you cognitively process it, which then causes stimulation and emotion at the very same time. So, if after exercise, your brain procedures your physical state as one of requiring to be active or escape, the emotion to follow might be stress and anxiety.
Significance
What can you eliminate from this? Learn to utilize the feelings and understandings you feel like a beginning place; then permit your brain figure out if you really remain in risk or merely experiencing the consequences of an exciting workout. In this way, you will not likely misinterpret a harmless event, such as exercise, as a fight-or-flight scenario.
