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Here's a brief personal story. A few months ago, I started working out again, as part of my PTSD recovery. Yesterday I was in my best physical shape since leaving prison five years ago. 
In a past life, I enjoyed martial arts. I actually have black belt degrees in three of them. After the whole political prisoner/refugee experience between and the PTSD that came with it, martial arts became... a PTSD trigger. I couldn't work out.
And when I say "I couldn't work out", I mean that my body would send a signal to my brain at some level I can't control and I'd have a dissociative episode and an upswell of gutteral grief. The physical activity I enjoyed became a PTSD trigger, and that sucked big time.
In late January, as I tried to lift myself out of deep burnout, and committed to building routines. I started slow and then started adding more ones as I went along. One of them was exercising.
Look, despite everything I survived, this was one of the most difficult things I did. You have to face your own mind. It's easy to fight an adversary, it's difficult to do so when that adversary is the very thing that keeps you sane and alive - your mind.
I couldn't restart with martial arts, and I wanted something more flexible which I can do at home. So I used this app: play.google.com/store/apps/det…
Working out has been a breakthrough habit, in a way that it has had benefits far beyond just one's fitness or energy level. It's also helped me manage the PTSD triggers. With time triggers fade and they just become memories.
In due time I added another habit - meditation. Also a breakthrough habit that has had more benefits beyond what you'd expect. Two things I now value as cornerstones of my recovery.
When I was jailed I lost so much weight that when I left prison, I had to hold my pants with my hands (you're not allowed a belt). But after leaving jail I was stuck in an airport for a month and had nothing but fast food to eat
Five years ago around this time I was in prison. It's deeply meaningful to me that I'm observing five years since while I'm in the best shape since.
One day I'll be able to wear my TKD suit again, and my black belt. I'm not there yet, but it'll come.
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