How Your Personality Type Can Trigger a Flare-Up

After working with thousands of members of Autoimmune Strong, people from all over the globe with a variety of different autoimmune diseases, exercise histories, ages and backgrounds, I have found that there are 2 opposite ways people approach exercise. 

And it actually isn’t about exercise at all. It’s about daily physical activity, along with corresponding mental energy output. 

We don’t think of daily physical activity as exercise, but it is… and it matters. Because the amount of physical activity influences your ability to tolerate stress, extra emotional or physical demands, and exercise. THIS is important, because if your body can’t tolerate these things, it will respond by putting you in an exercise induced symptom flare up, which means that your autoimmune symptoms get worse.  

The two types of personalities are: 
The Over-Doer 
The Under-Doer

Let’s break them down here: 

An over-doer is typically someone with a type A personality, who can often be defined as an energizer bunny. This kind of personality takes pride in being able to do it all, and wants to be able to live a full and active life. An over-doer is emotionally invested in working hard and doing things well, sometimes with a perfectionist tendency. This can be seen in how they move throughout the day at work, at home, and at the gym. They like to work hard, and get things done, often at the expense of their bodies. This kind of personality often ignores the early flare-up signals like headaches, sore muscles and fatigue and pushes through until they crash. They don’t often take enough time to rest and recover, and they feel guilty for being “lazy”. 

An under-doer is the opposite. This kind of personality is very attuned to their body’s symptoms and because of their pain, fatigue, and other symptoms like joint problems, it’s hard for this person to do much activity. It often feels more comfortable to sit in one place than to move about. Daily activities like cleaning the house or going to the supermarket feels hard and draining. They know that their body needs rest, and they lack the physical energy to be able to push through the things they want to do. They feel guilty for not being able to be helpful. 

At first glance, over-doers and under-doers seem like drastically different people. However, they are most often dealing with the same kind of pain and physical discomfort as a result of their autoimmune disease symptoms, these are just two different ways of handling it. There is a continuum between over-doer and under-doer, and most people fall somewhere in between. But these are the basic definitions, and understanding which you are (or whether you are both) will help you figure out what your body needs in order to take the next steps to get out of the over-doer or under-doer cycle. 

So, what are these next steps? 

In some ways the next steps are both the same for under-doers and over-doers, and in other ways they are different. 

Over-doers: 

1. Check in on your movement patterns. Are you pushing yourself physically to the brink? It can be from exercise or through daily activity. Are you always feeling depleted?

2. Stop and breathe. Notice where you hold tension and how you are breathing naturally. Try to incorporate deep breathing as a reminder to slow down

3. Train your body through exercise. The key for over-doers is to let go of the “more is better” notion related to exercise. The goal is to do just enough exercise to keep your muscles strong and your endurance up so that you can withstand the demands of your everyday life without having that flare-up crash.

Under-doers: 

1. Check in on your movement patterns. Are you sitting or lying down a lot because moving is hard for your body? Changes in posture, and pain in your back, joints or neck is often due to lack of movement.

2. Confront your fear. Exercise and/or the demands of daily life may be daunting. It can be difficult to even think of breaking the pattern. Take a few deep breaths a day and think about how you can move past what has sidelined you in the past.

3. Train your body through exercise  Traditional fitness, the kind that may cause you fear, is not the way. Gentle strength building exercise is what you need, to start strengthening your muscles again, which will actually relieve a lot of the pain you are experiencing. 

Autoimmune Strong provides exercise that fits both the over-doer and the under-doer… because the foundation of Autoimmune Strong is based on a few principles that spans across all types of bodies. We teach our members how to listen to their bodies and find their capacity for exercise, which is different for each person and can vary from 5 seconds a day to a half hour a day. We teach exercises that are gentle yet effective, that can easily be fit into a daily habit. We show you how a little bit of the “right” kind of exercise can go a long way in getting your body stronger and ready to live the life you want. Changing is hard, especially when you are living in pain and flare-up, but Autoimmune Strong is here to show you a new way. 

Are you ready to join us and learn a new way of exercising? Come join us! Click here to learn about our membership options.