Doing Nothing to Do Something

Till yesterday, I was all set to visit an osteopath for the pain in my neck that has lasted for almost a month and a half now. In fact, I planned to do an upper-body workout which would have aggravated the pain because I was going to anyway have the pain fixed, right? Wrong. 

Since the beginning of the year, I haven't been in the best of  health. No major illness or injury, just ailments severe to put a spanner in my normal activities. Most of the ailments--colds, upset stomachs, shoulder stiffness and neck pain--can, in my opinion, be attributed to me pushing my body beyond the limit even while being aware that I was doing so. 

Yesterday, I read an article about how a woman took up running to combat her depression and anxiety, and became so obsessed with it that she became an exercise evangelist. Running was her way of distracting herself from her anxiety, and all was good until she suffered a back injury that took her almost a year to recover from. Two sentences resonated with me. "If you tell an anxious person to exercise, they might well do it in an anxious way" and "I am coming to see how punitive we can be with ourselves without realising."

While my level of obsession is nowhere near that of the author of the piece, I have always seen myself as a fitness freak. I had never connected my fitness fanaticism with my anxiety but now I am beginning to think there might be a link. I frequently push myself hard and take a paracetemol pill afterwards to stave off colds and infections. Not very healthy behaviour. I have also  begun to see yoga as a quick-fix solution. 'Have neck pain, do a neck pain yoga session". 

Missing an exercise session puts me in a bad mood, and I almost see it as a moral failure. 

So, I am going to give my neck a chance to heal on its own. I might well need to see an osteopath, but I am not going to see one as a quick fix. Maybe this is my body's way of telling me to slow down.