Long time reader (of ALL of you and Brad's work), first time commenter. This is fascinating and explains a lot of what I experience. What began as normal 'routines' that I put in place as a highly focused and disciplined endurance athlete evolved into a compulsion to perform certain rituals after training every day or else...or else...or else what? The pandemic lock downs combined with my spouse's mental health crisis provoked me to turn to training as my escape, and I went from someone who trained to race to someone who self medicated with exercise and then started trying to 'optimize' by doing all sorts of crazy stuff with food and 'recovery techniques' to the point that I felt paralyzed by fear if I did not do a specific list of things after every training session. The result was training took hours and I would inevitably feel like my world was ending if I did not do ALL THE THINGS in the exact same order. I slowly pulled myself out of it but it was a horrible way to live. I never realized the biological mechanism and reading about this research suddenly was a light bulb moment for me.
I loved your book Do Hard Things and was thrilled to see you here. Sit with it- what a concept! I always say in ultrarunning when pain comes to check in to see where it's coming from and type. Stabbing & from a joint (kidneys also are in this arena) pay attention. Muscles complaining- keep moving. In 20 minutes they will subside, but not to worry, another set will speak up.
Figuring out you also deal with OCD actually really helped me, I always thought you have it all figured out with balancing obsession and letting go just enough.
For me it’s tied with perfectionism as well.
Do you think it’s mainly genetic? Or perhaps it develops with endurance sports over time?
Not a pathalogic example: this rings true to me on runs where something feels "bad," like a stomach ache, a niggle in the knee, or just not feeling peppy. I find myself blaming myself and wanting to fix it or optimize for the next run. Lately though, I've been able to accept that not every run is perfect and I don't have to perfect them. Sometimes I shouldn't have to. Pay attention to "this needs to be fixed" alarm. It's actually relieving when I just let myself not pay attention to it.
I like this framing. It gets at the ‘why can’t I let this go’ question. The brain isn’t just resolving prediction errors, it’s deciding which ones matter. When that prioritization doesn’t settle, the error doesn’t either.
Long time reader (of ALL of you and Brad's work), first time commenter. This is fascinating and explains a lot of what I experience. What began as normal 'routines' that I put in place as a highly focused and disciplined endurance athlete evolved into a compulsion to perform certain rituals after training every day or else...or else...or else what? The pandemic lock downs combined with my spouse's mental health crisis provoked me to turn to training as my escape, and I went from someone who trained to race to someone who self medicated with exercise and then started trying to 'optimize' by doing all sorts of crazy stuff with food and 'recovery techniques' to the point that I felt paralyzed by fear if I did not do a specific list of things after every training session. The result was training took hours and I would inevitably feel like my world was ending if I did not do ALL THE THINGS in the exact same order. I slowly pulled myself out of it but it was a horrible way to live. I never realized the biological mechanism and reading about this research suddenly was a light bulb moment for me.
Yes! I think this is more common in endurance sport than we realize. So glad you figured your way out of it!
This could not have come at a better time! Thank you for sharing this, especially this part -
“We need to learn to sit with our internal world so our brain discovers that not every alarm needs attending to. Over time, our brain recalibrates.”
Once again I am reminded that it’s the basics, the boring things that provide grounding, centredness and stability.
I loved your book Do Hard Things and was thrilled to see you here. Sit with it- what a concept! I always say in ultrarunning when pain comes to check in to see where it's coming from and type. Stabbing & from a joint (kidneys also are in this arena) pay attention. Muscles complaining- keep moving. In 20 minutes they will subside, but not to worry, another set will speak up.
That’s super relatable. Thank you for this piece!
Figuring out you also deal with OCD actually really helped me, I always thought you have it all figured out with balancing obsession and letting go just enough.
For me it’s tied with perfectionism as well.
Do you think it’s mainly genetic? Or perhaps it develops with endurance sports over time?
Not a pathalogic example: this rings true to me on runs where something feels "bad," like a stomach ache, a niggle in the knee, or just not feeling peppy. I find myself blaming myself and wanting to fix it or optimize for the next run. Lately though, I've been able to accept that not every run is perfect and I don't have to perfect them. Sometimes I shouldn't have to. Pay attention to "this needs to be fixed" alarm. It's actually relieving when I just let myself not pay attention to it.
I like this framing. It gets at the ‘why can’t I let this go’ question. The brain isn’t just resolving prediction errors, it’s deciding which ones matter. When that prioritization doesn’t settle, the error doesn’t either.
Completely relatable. ⬆️
What I thought was efficiency in my end was actually a bit of neurosis.
Spencer Arrighetti's comments just now about last night's game and his twin baby boys just speak so much about putting sports in perspective.