Runner's High

How to achieve a Runner's High
K. Aleisha Fetters

"Sometimes we get it, sometimes we don't. But we always want it - and more of it. It's the runner's high, and when we are lucky enough to tap into it, our runs feel easy, exhilarating, even euphoric. But we aren't always that lucky, are we?
Recently, researchers studied how the brain responds to running and found that the ability to get "high" while logging miles might be hard-wired within us. Years ago, our ancestors' survival likely depended on chasing down food. The desire to live was possibly their motivation to run and run fast, and the feel-good brain chemicals released when they did so may have helped them achieve the speed and distances required, says David A. Raichlen, Ph.D., an associate professor of anthropology at the University of Arizona. The runner's high may have served (and serves today) as a natural painkiller, masking tired legs and blistered feet, he says.
Even though you no longer have to chase down dinner, learning how happy brain reactions are sparked may help you achieve the runner's high more often."

Today I sit down with Katie Rose Sullivan to discuss the neural mechanisms underlying the Runner's High.

2015 Berlin Marathon - wikimedia.com

The Runner's High

Music is provided by http://freemusicarchive.org/ - Andy Cohen - "Trophy Endorphin" and offered by the Creative Commons License

Exercise and the Brain

One of my dissertation committee members, Michelle Voss, from the University of Iowa just wrote a great article in the HuffingtonPost about exercise and the brain. In the article she focuses on the benefits of Brain Derived Neruotropic Factor - BDNF, a protein that among other things improves the brain's capacity to change. Besides helping to make the brain more plastic, exercise has been shown to be important for decreasing stress, improving memory 1,2 and warding off depression as well as improving the condition of a number of neurodegnerative disorders and neural insults 1, 2. In fact Art Kramer's lab has been investigating the use of aerobic exercise as an intervention in school aged children to improve cognitive and academic performance.

In my own experience I both feel better and am able to think more clearly when I exercise. Almost everyday is planned around when I'll workout. Meeting in the morning, guess I'll go in early and then leave a little early so I can run while its still light out. Meeting in the afternoon, I'll run in the morning. Events scheduled throughout the day, I'll have to run as soon as I get up at 5:30. From high-school through college I played soccer and ran cross-country and track which meant that I worked out in some form almost everyday for over 8 years. It got to the point that at 3:00PM if I wasn't working out my body would start to do weird things, my mind slowed down and my body became achey. One of my biggest worries is sustaining an injury that limits my ability to perform any form of exercise. I'll continue to exercise in the hopes of chasing all the benefits that exercise my brain and overall health.