When Exercise Stops Helping Your Anxiety (and what to do when your go-to coping mechanism fails)

Written By Annie Mueller

For many people, exercise is the gold-standard “dealing with anxiety” tool:

  • Go for a run.

  • Climb something hard.

  • Ride until your thoughts quiet down.

  • Sweat it out at hot yoga.

And for a long time, it works. Movement burns off excess adrenaline, regulates the nervous system, and offers a sense of control when anxiety thoughts feel chaotic. For some people who are active, exercise often becomes the primary way they cope.

So when anxiety shows up despite regular workouts, it can feel confusing, frustrating, and even a little scary.

“This used to help. Why isn’t it working anymore? What’s wrong with me?”

First: this doesn’t mean exercise “stopped working”

Exercise is a powerful tool; however, no single coping strategy works forever, in every season, or for every kind of stressor. When it stops helping, it’s not a personal failure or a sign that you’re “too anxious.”

Why exercise helps anxiety (until it doesn’t)

Exercise helps anxiety because it:

  • Discharges stress hormones

  • Regulates the nervous system

  • Improves mood and sleep

  • Provides focus and structure

  • Offers relief from rumination and doom spirals

For many people, especially high achievers, it also provides:

  • A sense of competence

  • Control over the body

  • A socially acceptable way to manage stress

But anxiety is adaptive—it changes. And life changes, too.

Reasons exercise stops helping anxiety

1. Anxiety is more than physical symptoms

Anxiety is often driven by excess arousal: racing heart, tension, restlessness. Exercise helps burn that off.

But anxiety may also include:

  • Uncertainty

  • Struggling to find purpose or meaning

  • Chronic worry

  • Existential questions

  • Ongoing life stress

You can run 10 miles and still lie awake at night worrying about your aging parents, your job, or the future.

2. Exercise has become an avoidance strategy

This one is tender.

Movement can help regulate anxiety and also be a way to avoid uncomfortable emotions:

  • Sadness

  • Anger

  • Grief

  • Fear

  • Ambivalence

If exercise is the onlyway you cope, anxiety may get louder when your body slows down. And we know that avoidance works great… until it doesn’t. I think about it like holding a beach ball under water. You need more and more force to hold it under, only to have it come popping back up to the surface the moment we let up.

3. Your nervous system is already maxed out

For some people, especially endurance athletes, intense training can add stress rather than relieve it.

This is particularly true when:

  • Sleep is poor

  • Life stress is high

  • Recovery is insufficient

Intense training in the context of other life stressors can become a stressor in itself.

4. Injury, aging, or life changes limit access

When your main coping tool becomes less available due to injury, time constraints, or physical changes, anxiety often spikes.

Not because you’re fragile, but because your needs, abilities, and capacity can change over time.

5. Anxiety is asking for integration, not discharge

Exercise is a way that we can discharge stress. But anxiety needs to be understood and processed, not just outrun.

What not to do when exercise stops helping

  • Assume you’re broken

  • Double down on intensity

  • Shame yourself for “needing more”

  • Give up on movement altogether

Instead, widen the lens.

What to do when your go-to coping tool fails

1. Expand your coping repertoire (don’t replace it)

Think “and,” not “instead.”

Exercise can remain part of your coping tools, but it can’t be the only part.

Other regulation tools might include:

  • Breathing and mindfulness skills

  • Slower, gentler movement

  • Time outdoors without performance goals

  • Expressive writing or journaling

  • Playing an instrument or listening to music

  • Taking a hot bath or shower

  • Cold plunging (if you’re into that)

  • Talking things through (with a therapist or another trusted person)

2. Get curious about what the anxiety is pointing to

Ask yourself:

  • What feels uncertain right now?

  • What am I avoiding feeling?

  • What changed recently?

Anxiety often escalates when values, identity, or life direction are in flux.

3. Learn to sit with discomfort in small doses

If exercise has always been your escape hatch, tolerating stillness can feel unbearable at first.

It’s normal to feel distress in new or unfamiliar situations.

Start small:

  • Two minutes of stillness

  • Naming emotions without fixing

  • Letting the wave pass without acting

All we need to do is take baby steps.

4. Differentiate discipline from self-punishment

Movement can be another way to override your limits.

Ask:

  • Am I listening to my body or silencing it?

  • Would I advise a close friend to do what I’m doing right now?

The answer here matters.

Some closing thoughts

Exercise can still be a wonderful coping skill on which to fall back.

But your nervous system might be asking for a more nuanced, integrated approach. One that includes movement and meaning. Regulation and reflection. It’s not an either/or, but a both/and.

Therapy can be a way to explore these patterns in greater depth and to learn new approaches for managing stress and anxiety. If you’re interested in exploring what therapy with me could look like, please reach out to schedule your initial consult call.

Annie Mueller
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