Yesterday I explored the benefits of water. The other answer today.
On Monday I felt like a new person, or at least a much younger version of myself. Absolutely nothing ached anywhere--even the tiny nagging irritants I usually encounter on good days, were completely non-existent. I marveled at the ease with which I ran into the gym and circled that track! The hour workout was over before looking at the clock even once. I wasn't prepared for this.
As he set up the bike for me, I told Jesse how great I felt. Only then he tells me, "After the race I usually get a high that lasts all the next day too! You might not know how you really feel till tomorrow."
Tomorrow (Tuesday) came and went feeling exactly the same way. I sailed through Pilates and a workout. After Linda Williamson's class on "Persistence" Tuesday evening, as I shared this experience with her, she mentioned a possible 72 hour effect I could be having.
That's what it was -- 72 hours of euphoria! It sounds exaggerated, euphoria is a grandiose word. Then I checked my email and another friend (marathoner) had written, "You are probably still experiencing the euphoria stage!"
For a long time, "runner's high," has been talked about. However, in 2008... Researchers in Germany, using advances in neuroscience, report in the current issue of the journal Cerebral Cortex that the folk belief is true: Running does elicit a flood of endorphins in the brain. The endorphins are associated with mood changes, and the more endorphins a runner’s body pumps out, the greater the effect.
Endorphins are released during long, continuous workouts, when the level of intensity is between moderate and high, and breathing is difficult... Runner's high is known to create feelings of euphoria and happiness. My workout climbing the stairs was definitely high intensity, and breathing was most certainly difficult.
Endorphins are some of the many chemicals that contribute to runner's high; other candidates include epinephrine, serotonin, and dopamine. I think by the time I reached the top of the Aon building my body was firing all of them!
Another, endocanabanoids, are the body's natural chemical that interacts with the same brain receptor responsible for causing the high associated with marijuana use. They are associated with motivation and reward for running...likely cause as to the motivation behind why we run...
One more theory for the cause of runners high is that, runner’s high is... a trance caused by overtaxing of the brain’s information processing power. An example of this is that runner’s high has been described as pure happiness, elation, feelings of unity with one’s self and/or nature, endless peacefulness, timelessness, inner harmony, boundless energy, as well as the reduction of pain sensations. (There's another explanation for this "trance", involving the fact that stair climbing and running are jobs of the sub-conscious, not the conscious mind...I'll save that for another blog.)
In recent research,
The data showed that, indeed, endorphins were produced during running and were attaching themselves to areas of the brain associated with emotions, in particular the limbic and prefrontal areas.
The limbic and prefrontal areas, Dr. Boecker said, are activated when people are involved in romantic love affairs or, he said, “when you hear music that gives you a chill of euphoria, like Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3.” The greater the euphoria the runners reported, the more endorphins in their brain.
If, after every tower race I complete, I feel like I'm falling in love and listening to music feeling a "chill of euphoria" for three days straight...
...count me in for the long haul in this sport!
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Marcia, this photo is seemingly unrelated to the blog subject, except to say that I easily slipped into a state of euphoria on the Almafi Coast last summer! One of the times was walking up this narrow street only to discover the darkest, sweetest cherries ever. |
Sources:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/27/health/nutrition/27best.html -- All grey highlighted material.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endorphin -- All orange highlighted material.
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