Why running helps us think

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Athletes are well aware that running helps clear their minds. Lacking inspiration to overcome your creative crisis? Go and run. Can't make a fateful decision? Go and run. Is your head spinning, sad, or just lack of confidence? Go and run! But how do neuroscientists explain the miraculous effect of running? Read this article.

As the American writer Joyce Carol Oates once wrote in her New York Times column, "When you run, your mind runs with your body … in the same rhythm as your legs and arms." Popular YouTube video creator Casey Neistat noted that running gives him mental clarity: "All the big decisions I've made over the past eight years have been on the run." But perhaps the best running quote comes from distance runner Monte Davis. It can be found in the book "":

It's hard to run and feel sorry for yourself at the same time. Plus, every long run comes with hours of mental clarity.

Running dispels thoughts, helps make important decisions, and relieves self-pity. After a good run, sometimes you feel like a completely new person. And to some extent, this expression can be taken literally. After nearly three decades of research, neuroscientists have been able to confirm the link between aerobic exercise and mental clarity afterward.

More recently, it was believed that the number of neurons in the brain of an adult does not increase. But this, fortunately, turned out to be a delusion. Research has shown that new neurons are able to form throughout life. And to the greatest extent, aerobic training contributes to this. Moreover, as noted by the president of the American Academy of Clinical Neuropsychology Karen Postal (Karen Postal), "so far, intense aerobic exercise is the only known trigger that initiates the formation of new neurons."

Even more surprising, new cells are formed in the hippocampus, the region of the brain that is responsible for learning and remembering. This at least explains why many researchers have already identified a link between aerobic exercise and improved memory. Karen Postal, who runs herself, added:

In those 30-40 minutes that you sweat on the treadmill, new cells appear in your brain, and your memory gets better.

Other changes in the brain influenced by running have been seen in the frontal lobe. Activity in this area is increased in those who run regularly for a long time. Many aspects of pure thinking are associated with the frontal lobe: planning, concentration, goal setting, and time management.

This area is also related to emotion management, which may explain the earlier findings of psychology professor Emily E. Bernstein at Harvard. Like Karen Postal, Emily is a runner, and she has noticed a change in her thinking after a run. She became interested in research in recent years, which found that physical activity helps with anxiety and mood swings. But Emily wanted to know exactly how it happened.

With colleague Richard J. McNally, she conducted a classic exploration of emotion using a heartbreaking scene from The Champion (1979).

Before watching, some of the 80 participants in the experiment went for a half hour run, while others did stretching exercises for the same time. After watching, everyone filled out a questionnaire about how much they were touched by the episode of the film.

After 15 minutes, the participants were again asked to rate their emotional state. Those who ran showed significant improvements in mood. Moreover, the worse they felt at first, the more noticeable was the positive result after a quarter of an hour. Research into the mechanism of this effect is ongoing. However, we can already say that if you are in a bad mood, it makes sense to go for a run. Running helps you better control your emotions and deal with negativity faster.

There is another beneficial effect of running on thinking that has not yet been adequately explored. When you run, your mind wanders. Mindfulness and concentration are definitely important. But for the effective work of the brain, it is useful to sometimes be in a distracted state. Here's what they write about it in the journal Frontiers in Psychology:

Sometimes we have to re-read the same line three times, because attention is easily scattered by small insights, thoughts about past or future events. A short pause does not spoil the story as long as it allows you to refresh your memory of emotions that will make the story more compelling. The loss of a few minutes due to a missed turn is not so significant if by the end of the journey you can finally understand why the boss was disappointed during the last meeting. Returning home without shopping, which was the main purpose of going to the store, is not a tragedy if you decide to change jobs along the way.

The benefits of scattered attention are not easy to appreciate, but that does not mean that it is of no value. And besides running for a long time, there are not many ways to induce this beneficial state.

Many runners, professionals or amateurs, relatives have repeatedly asked: "What are you thinking about, overcoming tens of kilometers?" As Haruki Murakami wrote in his book What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, the point is not just to think about something specific. It doesn't matter at all.

I don't think about anything in particular, I run myself and run. Basically, when I run, a kind of emptiness forms around me. We can say that I am running in order to find myself in this very emptiness.

Haruki Murakami