I started working out because I didn’t know what else to do with the noise in my head.
It wasn’t about getting stronger or looking better. It was about control. About moving when everything inside me was stuck. About feeling something that wasn’t sadness. I didn’t call it therapy then, but that’s what it was — a kind of quiet treatment that never came with prescriptions or appointments.
I have been working out every day for weeks now. My routine has become something between ritual and rebellion. I wake up around five, often after barely five hours of sleep, and I start moving. Some mornings it’s yoga, other days it’s long walks or a home workout that leaves my muscles trembling. I like the burn — it reminds me I exist. It grounds me before my mind takes off into the usual spiral of anxiety, planning, and overthinking.
For a long time, I thought exercise was only about fitness — about the body, not the mind. But the more I stayed with it, the more I began to understand that working out is deeply psychological. The physical act of movement does something chemical, something invisible. It quiets the brain. It releases endorphins, dopamine, and serotonin — the same neurotransmitters most antidepressants try to regulate. Science calls it the runner’s high. I call it breathing space.
Psychologists have long talked about how exercise functions as emotional regulation. When we move, we’re not just burning calories; we’re burning cortisol — the stress hormone that piles up with every worry, every repressed emotion, every fight we never voiced. Movement gives the body a language when the mind goes silent. That’s why people cry after running or feel euphoric after a long stretch. It’s not vanity. It’s a relief.
But there’s a darker side to this, too — the point where exercise becomes compulsion, when we start chasing that sense of relief until it becomes punishment. I have been there. I know what it means to run not for joy, but to outrun my own thoughts. To lift not to feel strong, but to feel exhausted enough to sleep. The line between coping and controlling can blur fast. And once you’ve crossed it, workouts stop being therapy and start being another form of self-harm that looks socially acceptable.
It’s tricky because our culture worships productivity even in the name of wellness. “No pain, no gain,” they say. “Push through it.” “Discipline is everything.” I’ve seen this mindset turn people into machines. And it’s worse for people like me — the ones with bipolar disorder, where energy itself fluctuates between extremes. In my manic or hypomanic phases, I can go on for hours without rest, running or working out until I’m dizzy. It feels invincible, intoxicating. But when the low hits, I can barely move, and then comes the guilt — the feeling that I’ve failed myself. That my body is betraying my mind.
That’s where the psychology of exercise becomes complex. Working out does help regulate emotion, but only when it comes with awareness. You have to notice why you’re moving — whether you’re chasing peace or punishing yourself. The body remembers intent. It holds every push, every tremor, every sigh. When I work out now, I try to listen to it. I try to move with my body instead of against it. Some days it just means stretching on the floor and calling that enough. Some days it means walking slowly instead of running.
Therapists now often recommend movement-based interventions for people dealing with anxiety, trauma, or depression. Somatic therapies, dance movement therapy, and trauma-informed yoga are gaining space in mental health care because they recognise what psychiatry often ignores — that emotions live in the body, not just the mind. Our bodies remember what the brain forgets. Movement helps us release what words can’t.
But it’s also important to remember that working out is a privilege. It takes time, space, and energy to care for your body this way. Not everyone has that. Not everyone can afford gym memberships or therapy sessions that teach mindful movement. In that sense, exercise as emotional regulation also reflects the inequalities of self-care culture. For many, survival leaves no room for wellness.
Still, there’s something fundamentally human about the need to move. You don’t need fancy equipment for it. Sometimes it’s just a walk around the house when your thoughts feel heavy. Sometimes it’s dancing alone at 2 a.m. because you need to feel alive again. Movement, in its simplest form, is how the body speaks when language fails. It’s how we grieve, how we celebrate, how we begin again.
When I work out now, I don’t call it fitness. I call it negotiation — between my mind and my body, between who I am and who I am trying to be. It’s not about perfection anymore. It’s about presence. I’ve stopped chasing the idea of being “disciplined” and started trying to be kind. I’ve learned to ask: what does my body need today? Some days it’s rest. Some days it’s stillness. Some days, it’s the gentle ache of muscles that reminds me I tried.
What I’ve come to realise is that exercise isn’t about control. It’s about surrender. It’s about trusting that your body knows how to find balance, even when your mind doesn’t. It’s the most honest therapy I’ve ever done, because it doesn’t lie. Your body tells you when it’s tired, when it’s strong, when it’s hurting, when it’s healing. You just have to listen.
And maybe that’s what emotional regulation truly is — not suppressing what you feel, not numbing it, but giving it somewhere to go. A treadmill, a walk, a slow stretch at dawn. A reminder that motion, no matter how small, is proof of life.
References