After publishing my blog post Understanding a Repeating Pattern where I discussed joints injuries and my efforts to address them I glad to share that 10 months after of buying the bicycle I was able to reach a level of confidence and well being using it that I had not achieved before.
That is I stopped having knee pain or any other type of discomforts that forced me to stop using the cycling all together.
In fact, during the first 10 months using the bicycle I spent more than half of time not biking due to knee pain. At the maximum I cycled for 2 weeks before having a limiting injury.
However, for the last month I used my city bike comfortable everyday, and better than that I took very little to no breaks when going for longer trips.
Clearnly psychoeducation, resilience and patience paid off. Also being grateful that exercise is beneficial for mental or physical health.
However, I still need to be cautious, as climbing the stairs repeatedly on the same day triggers knee pain. Also I still avoid riding the bike for longer trips on consecutive days.
Meantime, always play the long game and opt for gradual improvements and the sustainability of cycling habit.
Finally, as one success beings another, I’ve broken sweat during cycling which is something that did not happen for around 2 decades, my calves have become noticeably stronger, and I enjoy the elevated heart rate from speed cycling.
These achievements feel like major progress—especially since I didn’t anticipate them. They’ve also boosted my self-confidence.
Conclusion
Listening to hundreds of podcasts about psychology, reading around 20 books about psychology, and still continuing my psychoeducation have all deepened my understanding of my mental health struggles and character flaws, which in return help me fix major behavioral problems that were holding me back form a healthier and better life.
It is also worth noting that this success of cycling without an injury after 10 months of trial and error is relatively a quick progress considering that in my case it has taken me 5 years and sometimes more to fix other type of issues.
This reinforces that patience and resilience are essential for improving quality of life, particularly when dealing with multiple health challenges.