Maybe I Did Just Need to Break a Sweat
For 2021, This is My Brave is excited to announce the second annual Brave the Storm 5K virtual event. This year’s event will take place the weekend of June 11-13. We’re building on the success of last year’s inaugural run so, for 2021, we want to create momentum leading up to the event. That’s why we are encouraging all of you to sign up today to join us. When you do, we hope that you will also commit to getting active / staying active NOW when we need it the most — in the winter months of the pandemic.
Each month leading up to our Brave the Storm 5K weekend in June, we plan to feature a Brave alum who will share their own story of how physical movement has helped their mental health. We hope you find these posts to be a source of encouragement for you as you undertake the Brave the Storm 2021 challenge.
This month we are pleased to share a blog post by This Is My Brave Columbus 2019 alumna Nita Sweeney.
“I just need to break a sweat.” My friend Lora sat across the table from me at Stauf’s Coffee Roasters in Columbus Ohio where we both live. Our discussion had turned from writing to depression. Mine, chronic, recurrent, severe. Hers from fibromyalgia. This was not the first time we’d had this discussion, and she was not the first person to make a similar claim: exercise can heal your mind.
But I had gained so much weight from inactivity and antidepressant medications. And I was so tired. How could I possibly make myself move enough to break a sweat? The thought made me want to crawl in bed and pull the weighted blanket tight around my face. Besides, it wouldn’t work. Exercise might help her or the many other people who claimed they felt energized, less depressed, and more able to focus when they regularly moved their bodies, but I wasn’t one of those people.
Seriously. They just did not understand.
But my depression got worse. Much worse.
Over an eleven-month period, seven people and a cat I loved died, including my 24-year-old niece and, at the end of the year, my mother. Meanwhile, the book I’d been working on for several years, including taking it through a graduate school writing program, continued to receive rejection after rejection. And I kept gaining weight. The darkness grew and grew.
I wondered if it was time to plan an early exit.
While in this state of bon bon-eating, sofa-slouching gloom, I noticed a social media post from a high school friend. She is a year older than me and was about the same size. Neither of us had ever been athletic.
Her post set warning bells off in my head: “Call me crazy, but this running is getting to be fun!” Surely her account had been hacked.
But it had not.
She was following an interval training plan: Couch to 5k. Back then you didn’t need the app. You could download the plan pdf and print it off.
I did not print the plan and tape it to the end of my bookcase right away. But when winter in central Ohio began to give way to spring, a crocus bud straining through the snow made my heart swell with hope. Had Lora and all my “I just need to break a sweat” friends been right? Nothing else was working. Maybe, before I made my early exit, I would print the plan and give this sweat thing a try.
But I didn’t want anyone to know.
I snuck down to a hidden ravine area of our neighborhood with Morgan, our yellow Labrador retriever, as an “I’m just walking the dog” decoy. Holding a digital timer in one hand and the dog’s leash in the other, I jogged the requisite sixty seconds to begin the program. I alternated walking and jogging (mostly walking) for twenty minutes. I broke a sweat and didn’t die. And, those simple “steps” set in motion a journey that some days even I have trouble believing.
As I write this, a decade later, I have completed three full marathons, twenty-eight half marathons (in eighteen states) and more than 100 shorter races.
My first and second books have been published and the first book won an award!
My medications have been reduced (with my psychiatrist’s assistance) from six to one.
My mood, energy level, and focus have improved.
Most importantly, I no longer have or NEED an exit plan. I want to stick around to see what happens next. I want to share what I’ve learned.
I want to live!
Don’t you hate it when your friends are right?
~~~
About the Author: Nita Sweeney is the award-winning wellness author of the running and mental health memoir, Depression Hates a Moving Target: How Running with My Dog Brought Me Back from the Brink and co-creator of the writing journal, You Should Be Writing: A Journal of Inspiration & Instruction to Keep Your Pen Moving. A long-time meditator, three-time marathoner, and former assistant to writing practice originator Natalie Goldberg, Nita founded the Facebook group Mind, Mood, and Movement to support mental well-being through meditation, exercise, and writing practice. She lives in central Ohio with her husband, Ed, and their yellow Labrador retriever, Scarlet. Download your free copy of Nita’s eBook Three Ways to Heal Your Mind.
Follow @NitaSweeney on your favorite social media channels.
JOIN us for Brave the Storm 2021 and let’s break a sweat together for mental health!
