Is the running boom making you feel exhausted too?

The smug, virtue-signalling wellbeing posts on social media are truly something to behold. You know the ones: if it’s not the person posting their run on Strava or the hours of exercise they did on the beach at sunrise while you – a miserable slacker – were sleeping, it’s a seemingly airbrushed acquaintance with salon hair, posting about the radiant breath work they did in some picturesque setting, alongside their daily ice bath, sauna and meditation practice.

Whatever it is, the implication is clear: these people are cleaner, healthier, fitter, more motivated, and, dare I say it, better than the rest of us. It’s comical, but it can have serious implications.

There is both pressure and pleasure in the pursuit of wellbeing for Gian Toscano.Credit: Luis Enrique Ascui

Alongside nearly 17 million #wellbeing posts on Instagram, increasing literacy around the genuine benefits of wellbeing has become a double-edged sword. Awareness about the importance of any pursuit often comes with pressure, which is then magnified by what we see on social media.

And when it appears that we must look and act a certain way to achieve wellbeing, this pressure can become a deterrent – instead of being inspirational.

A new global survey of 16,000 adults found that one in two (45 per cent) are experiencing “wellbeing burnout”. Fifty-five per cent of Australian respondents reported it, making us the “top burnout zone” out of the 15 countries surveyed.

Respondents cited social pressure to appear well, even when they don’t feel it; conflicting information about what wellbeing is and a sense of loneliness make the pursuit feel stressful and exhausting.

“Last year, people increasingly prioritised their wellbeing – yet the state of wellbeing didn’t improve,” reads the report commissioned by activewear retailer Lululemon. “This year, the report finds that the constant pressure to improve our wellbeing is actually making us less well.”

True wellbeing is neither expensive nor complicated, says clinical psychologist Dr Emily Musgrove. The pillars are movement, face-to-face connection, play and presence, she explains. We can find it through any enjoyable physical activity – gardening, doing a puzzle, being in nature or socialising – that makes us feel nourished.

Yet wellbeing has been commoditised and is often performative, often presenting a singular, superficial image.

“There is an increasing pressure through social media to perform wellbeing, and I think it’s very different from what wellbeing actually feels like,” says Musgrove, who meditates for 10 minutes when her two children are in bed and plays tennis with friends for fitness and the fun of it.

The ice baths and saunas, marathon running, breath work, meditation sessions (and the rest of it) are, she adds “the icing on the cake of wellbeing” but not necessary for wellbeing itself.

“Those things are, in some ways, nice to have, but the foundations are missing.”

The issue is that when we see it in a certain way often enough, it’s easy to fall for the illusion, compare ourselves, and end up feeling inadequate.

“Comparison actually elicits the stress response, which is the opposite of what we’re wanting when we’re thinking about wellbeing,” she says. “So exposure to those expectations and pressures are paradoxically increasing the stress.”

Wellbeing is a feeling – not an image.

Melbourne-based marketing manager Gian Toscano finds it both motivating and draining. “You have this pressure to do all this stuff. At the same time, I feel burnt out from it all,” says the 27-year-old.

Though he trains five times a week and enjoys socialising, he feels stressed and guilty if he skips a session. “When you look at social media, a lot of people are up at dawn and when I wake up, they’ve already done their workout,” he says. “I was meant to train, and I haven’t.”

When we look outside ourselves for our sense of wellbeing, we’re bound to fail, Musgrove says. The trick is in creating the mental space to check in and to notice the instinct to distract (often by scrolling on social media) when we’re bored, lonely or not feeling “well”.

“It can just be slowing down, having a glass of water, asking ‘what do I need right now?’ ”

“It might be, ‘I need to call a friend’, or ‘I need to go for a walk’, or ‘can I delay going on my phone?’ So just this awareness is about offering this choice. You might choose to go on social media, and that’s fine, but then it is then a very conscious decision.”

Mindful awareness also involves paying attention to what we enjoy and what feels good in our body, from food to movement to face-to-face connection. It is a practice based on feeling and listening to ourselves.

“In my opinion, self-care element is pretty simple,” Musgrove says. “We don’t have to overcomplicate it, but certainly, we are given messages that it needs to look a lot bigger and more performative.”

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