Running is a popular form of exercise that provides a sense of achievement or accomplishment strengthening our body activities. It truly justifies the course of action taken for health benefits. This sense of achievement is due to the burst of endomorphin and oxytocin enabling your body to feel good about running. However, there is a specific term referred to as “Runners High” defining the same phenomenon of feeling good and energetic after a run. How beneficial is running? Does it improve our physical and mental health? We need to answer these questions in order to find the significance of running. So, let’s start our journey.
How does running change our body and mind?
Running can be as good as any other aerobic exercise that reflects breathing. However, when you start to run, your body undergoes several changes reflecting changes in the breathing pattern, heart beat becomes faster for providing oxygen in the blood. As you finish your stride the body releases a hormone called endomorphin. Several people associate this short-term lasting emotion with a “Runner’s High”. However, they often associate it with a euphoric state of bliss. On the contrary, many athletes and marathon runners have never experienced runner’s high in their entire run. While concluding people react differently as they release endomorphin in their body.
Running releases endomorphin for endurance and stability
This is slightly off-topic but discussing the relative behaviour of endomorphin and its temporary or permanent benefits might help us to identify the benefits of a run daily. People claim to be experiencing “Runner’s High” but there’s no scientific evidence that proves endomorphin passes the Blood blood-brain barrier to release any euphoric effect over the brain. However, it helps to suppress body pain and mental fatigue due to strenuous running. On the other hand, some researchers suggest that a certain state of mind that reflects a euphoric state of blissful feeling is due to the release of EC(Endocannabinoids)- Natural cannabinoids produced by the ECS(Endocannabinoid System). Therefore, our body releases Cannabinoids to make us feel rewarded while doing a run.
Top Amazing benefits of running
A healthy lifestyle takes effort and discipline which most people lack in their daily schedule. Therefore, they are always searching for the most optimal way to keep their body healthy without much effort. Running came as a natural activity that we all tend to do in a state of efficiency but lack practice to do it correctly. So, running is a great exercise that could yield amazing health benefits. Some of the best have been mentioned below:-
- Running is an overall cardio exercise– This is a common term frequently used by fitness trainers who recommend doing cardio sessions twice a week to keep your heart healthy in late years.
A)- Heart Health– Apart from being a cardio session, running is a respiratory exercise that lowers your cholesterol levels, reduces the chances of getting Type 2 Diabetes and helps to keep your heart healthy. It lays stress on the heart but in a good way. As you start running your heart pumps out blood to supply oxygen to the muscles and organs. On the other hand, more blood tends to come through the heart arteries where your heart pumps it again. This is the basic function of the heart but as we start to run our heart pumps more blood to the muscles resulting in a faster pace of running and pumping more oxygen with a slow heart rate.
B)– The legs are the most important part of running as your body initiates leg-centric movements while running. Therefore, it is very important to understand which leg muscles are being used for running. The main leg muscles are quadriceps, calves, glutes and hamstrings which naturally start the running movement. However, after maintaining a running economy your body starts adjusting strength, balance and movements. Most importantly, it prevents any risk of injury where your leg movement is involved. As a result, you can ensure better stability in terms of leg movement and bone strength.
C)– During running, body joints get the most amount of stress contemplating some of the best joint stability factors. Fortunately, knees are the most stressed joints in any leg movement. Therefore, it’s really important to understand whether running is good or bad for your knees. The answer is clear No, running won’t affect your ligaments or knee joints which are largely involved in any running movement. Despite the popular belief, running doesn’t make your joints weak or immobile. This is the basic fear of every obese person who is afraid of running but in reality, running strengthens your joints in the best way possible.
- Running improves the lifespan of a person by supporting cardiovascular health and treating cholesterol problems. As a result, your body starts adjusting the body physiology as per the activity levels, in an experiment people who used to run for a minimum period of 75 minutes a week supported longer lifespan than any average person. This significantly improves your organs’ health and activity levels to fight obesity or overweight problems. There is significant evidence that suggests that running works exceptionally well if you do it regularly.
- It also helps to prevent the symptoms of cancers which are commonly highlighted in people who often live sedentary lifestyles and opt for invasive habits. However, it cannot treat cancer but it surely boosts the body’s immunity level by keeping the organs active and well functioning without any side effects. Several cancer symptoms often get treated correctly which reduces the risk of breast cancer by 40%, colony cancer by 30% and prostate cancer by 65%. Another study conducted in the medical field found that women who are active or do any running movements are much safer than women who engage themselves in a sedentary lifestyle.
- Running can be a good aerobic exercise that impacts our physical and psychological parts. As a result, several mental illnesses can be easily treated by following a simple pattern of keeping your mental state engaged in any physical activity. This will affect Your mental ability to counter stress anxiety as well as the stressful environment. However, in research, people who used to run in their early 50s have engaged themselves in a significant way of escaping the ageing crisis without any side effects.
- This so-called Runner’s High formula will ultimately help your body manage stress and anxiety levels. As a result, you will experience less fatigue in a packed scheduled environment giving you mental tolerance against unpredictable behavior. When you start running your senses get active from touching to running or taking every single step. It significantly helps our body to restore and pack our way to keep our body active and lead a healthy lifestyle. So, you can run and feel energetic after doing a single lap. You will notice some changes within your body which is way better than running on treadmills.
The best running guide for beginners
To start a running program you need some guidance from the pros who have been marathon runners and sprinters throughout their lives putting an effort to be the best in the sport. Therefore, listed below are some points highlighted by them giving their best advice for any beginners:
- Start with jogging- This is a slow but steady process that develops a lot of strength and stability in the leg movement before starting your actual run. You can start with a slow pace of 4-5 and continue with 2 laps. This simple step would help you to establish a sense of continuity with the running program and will act as a warm-up.
- Motivate yourself- Running is more than just moving legs side by side because as you start doing an aerobic exercise then you will feel tired in a short duration of time. But still, you need to run to keep your body active and free from a sedentary lifestyle. Putting forward yourself is the biggest task that you have to complete on a regular basis where you will feel demotivated and want to take a rest instead of going for a run. Doing what’s important for your body is the real courage that you have to show every day.
- Make a running plan- In the initial days, you need to continue with a plan that can be easily executed without any discomfort. As the week progresses you need to come up with an MTT plan where you should start running at a higher pace giving yourself much confidence as per the daily activities. Following this, you will achieve a better sense of adaptability to keep the pace running without any discomfort.
As you start putting up the efforts to keep your running active and well functioning then you will experience a sense of calm and ease defined as a “Runner’s High” giving you a better health status and promoting a better suitability without any body pain.