When I got to university I was aware of the expectations on me to go out drinking every night, and I knew I would be the odd one out. I was in bed before ten my first night here, and fast asleep at four when my new flatmates returned home. As they entered deep sleep around eight, I was finishing my three-mile warmup before ten kilometres of intervalled sprinting on the running track next door, and I didn't question whether it was extreme to be running 10 miles and sleeping eleven hours a day.

This is the solitary runner who knows they are right. But when you think about it, are they right? I was locked into an obsession, unfortunately, which was both a psychological and chemical addiction.

Exercise releases beta-endorphins into the bloodstream and these relieve the brain and produce a "feel-good" factor. The more regularly you exercise, the higher the body's natural tolerance to endorphins. This means that as you exercise more, you require a higher intensity of exercise in order to produce the same endorphin release.  Exercise can become addictive, as athletes begin to require the  effects of the endorphine - "the runners high".  Like any addiction, exercise addiction can result in dependence, tolerance, and continued use or participation despite adverse affects, leading to the sacrifice other activities to devote more time to exercise.

I underrate consistently; feelings of hunger and weakness were quite normal. Remarkably, I was almost never injured. The real crunch came later in the year when not only my social life suffered from the amount I ran, but my running itself. Eventually I found out that I had been overtraining, began to do so a bit less, and actually ran faster for it. I started going out in the evenings because I felt less exhausted. I was lucky that the people whose company I had spurned now let me into their group.

Two years on, I still run, and lift weights too, but I've learnt how to build it into my life sensibly.  I go out plenty, drink, smoke cigars (don't copy me there, please) and I live with three of those first-year housemates who I originally spurned. Last night we all got in at two in the morning. I hold down a part-time job as well as my degree. So, without meaning to boast, I'm pleased with myself because the exercise I do enriches the other things in my life. It is nice to be fit and get high every day without damaging my body or risking overdose. I am still mad about exercise, but by now the addiction is something which drives me towards the right amount of activity without ruining my energy levels down. I compete too, and hope to make the BUSA semi-finals at 400m next year.

I'm telling you all this because exercise is one medication that people should consider seriously when faced with depression, downness, lack of direction, apathy – all these states and more. Exercise relieves your brain, it generates beta-endorphines whilst ultimately strengthening your body. Blood levels of beta-endorphins have been found to increase to as much as five times their resting levels during a prolonged bout of aerobic exercise (over 30mins).  It's true there are harms you can incur physically from exercising, but by and large the effects are beneficial (unless of course you get obsessive about it).

Of course, exercise isn't for everyone. Some people may find different ways to lift themselves out of a gloom, like chocolate for example.  But Chocolate releases the same chemicals as exercise does—it's those happy endorphins I keep mentioning. But the benefits of exercise go beyond the five minutes it takes to eat a chocolate bar.  Regular exercise habits, in many cases, provide a long term boost and limit to physiological suffering. I've never been depressed clinically or had an eating disorder or been mentally ill – I'm very lucky in that respect – but equally I've never been the most straightforwardly happy person. I've often felt unrest in my mind, and disquiet, exercise is the best form of mild relief for mild moods.  It makes you fitter too, so that there is less chance that you might get ill or run down, which contribute to low moods and apathy.

It's a bit like what happens to children when they push their bodies harder than usual. I worked in childcare over in France for a year, looking after three brats with too much energy. They were loveable in many ways, but spent a great deal of their time fighting, mistrusting each other, and throwing objects and obscenities at the people they didn't like.  During a bus strike, I had to walk them to school, home again, to the park where they played as usual, and then walk them home again. Having clocked up fifteen miles on foot between them, they were knackered. They just sat reading books, told each other what they'd read, and went to bed when told. It wasn't just nice for me as their au-pair – although it did make my evening easier! – but it was nicer for them: all the angst and excesses of energy which normally flailed about inside their heads had found expression through their feet; it had moved them around the places they needed to be, and got them home; and at home they settled and thought, and didn't feel all the need for hating and hitting. This made me think how exercise can help your brain.

However, if you have an addictive personality like me, you've got to be careful not to become hooked.  And you don't necessarily have to be competitive either, there's no need. But try jogging for half an hour, or if you don't normally exercise, start with five to ten minute runs, two or three times a week. Build up until it's half an hour three times a week. It doesn't have to hurt much, just work up a sweat. If it does start to hurt don't shy away from it for that reason—there are reasons for avoiding exercise, but effort isn't one. It will involve effort, and it may be you don't enjoy it all at once. But giving the exercise remedy a chance will mean sticking this out for a few weeks to see what happens. This challenge gives you a mind set and sense of achievement that you can apply to any area of your life, especially with studying.

Ultimately, the last four years that I have spent running, in particular the last two, I have felt a weight off my chest and a mental freedom. I've found something to believe in, something to socialise through, and something that gives me energy for living the other parts of my life.