Healing the ego is finding the balance between learning to love yourself and becoming an arrogant, overconfident maniac. Because living with PTSD comes from being pushed into that space of feeling like a non-person, without a voice, the ego is central to recovery.
Know yourself, love yourself
What is Ego?
What exactly is ego, and when does a big ego become a bad thing? The dictionary definition is that ego is a person's sense of self-esteem or self-importance. People living with PTSD have often been ground down and suffered secondary victimization by wrongly taking the blame for the trauma on themselves. This can be exacerbated by victim-blaming and the gaslighting that the person is subjected to in their weakened state.
Yet there are occasional outbursts of overconfidence that explode into rage, particularly when backed into a corner or on days when the feeling of helplessness is overwhelming. The two extreme egos- one too low, the other too high, must be balanced to journey back to any semblance of the real person.
A look at the definition of psychoanalysis is a little more revealing: "The part of the mind that mediates between the conscious and the unconscious and is responsible for reality testing and a sense of personal identity." Playing out as a low sense of self-esteem that vacillates to overpowering others, a better balance could be found by looking closer at the relationship between ego and exercise.
Ego Depletion And Physical Activity
Delivering inarguably great benefits, exercise also plays an important role in ego- or a person’s self-esteem. Investigating the effects of an eight-week aerobics program on self-esteem, a 2016 paper revealed that aerobic exercise increases self-esteem. Also noteworthy was the improvement found in educational, family, and social self-esteem scores.
Showing that it’s a two-way street, the School of Science and Technology at Nottingham Trent University in the UK published a paper on Self-Control and Exercise: A Review of the Bi-Directional Relationship. In simple terms, higher levels of self-control result in better exercise performance and abidance, but the depletion of self-control decreases performance and tenacity on subsequent exercise tasks. Looking from the other end, long-term adherence to exercise programs- with the associated improved physical fitness, enhances self-control. This also applies to what the researchers describe as an "acute bout of exercise" which promotes subsequent self-control.
Body Image And Subjective Well-Being
But how does exercise connect to subjective well-being, how people experience and evaluate their lives? Looking at the exercise- body image- subjective wellbeing connection isn't just about feeling better about looking better as a result of changes in the body as a result of exercise.
Posting interesting results, the authors of The Relationship Between Physical Exercise and Subjective Well-Being in College Students say that:
(1) Levels of physical activity positively correlate with individual well-being.
(2) People engaging in a medium and high level of exercise display a higher level of individual well-being compared to those exercising at a low level.
(3) body image and self-esteem essentially mediate between physical exercise and subjective well-being.
Clarifying the relationship between physical exercise and individual well-being also provides a reference point for mental health.
Ego, Mental Health, PTSD
Exploring ways to look after mental health using exercise, a study by The Mental Health Foundation UK, How to look after your mental health using exercise, confirms the huge potential of exercise to enhance our well-being, an aspect of self that PTSD distorts. Even in short bursts such as 10 minutes of brisk walking, exercise increases mental alertness, and energy and changes a negative outlook to a positive mood.
Reducing stress and anxiety, the act of participating in some form of physical exercise regularly can increase self-esteem. This in turn can reduce stress and anxiety. Not limited to the ego/self-esteem arena, regular exercise plays a part in preventing the development and progression of mental health problems. For people living with mental health problems, it also improves quality of life.
Delivering holistic benefits that encompass the challenges of mental well-being, a regular exercise program supports improved self-esteem- the healthy element of ego, which in term incrementally improves well-being. Rather than looking to exercise to create a body that impresses others, exercise- in improving self-esteem, creates a path to subjective well-being- enabling a personal sense of self-worth, external to the opinions of others. It’s simply a way to love yourself- in a healthy way, with or without PTSD.
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