RUNNER’S HIGH VISION
Runner’s Get High?
It’s not a drug you can buy from a pharmaceutical and you can’t order it from Alexa. As a disclaimer, I have no medical background, yet alone would I know fully how to describe scientifically what occur’s when an individual gets a runner’s high. As far as I understand, there are endogenous chemicals in the brain that is produced when a person is doing aerobic activity, especially when exhausting themselves but not quite needing to push their limit.
There is a reason why it’s called a runner’s high. Endorphins are produced which allow for a reduction in stress and pain. Another factor is the meditative state the person will experience, which helps to resolve anxiety and clears out the clutter in the mind. So while you read this and could be sitting on your couch or walking around the grocery store, set up a time to go on a run when you have free time. However, the runner’s high may not come to you right away, possibly not even for the first few months of running, and when you do, you’ll get it without even realizing it. So how would you know if you got a runner’s high?
First of all, it may take sometime to experience, for others that are lucky, it can happen right away. For most to experience it, the euphoric feeling dissolves stress, anxiety, and pain, can often go unnoticed. The level of focus is absurd to where all you can focus on is allowing for the flow of the runner’s high to stick around for the candle party. The clear state of mind is extraordinary since most of our adulthood, we’re just distracted by responsibilities, current events, relationships, and so on. The greatest feeling that anyone can get from a runner’s high is the sense of weightlessness and loss of time.
What is Runner’s High Vision?
If you don’t know what Runner’s High Vision is, then you must’ve stumbled on this website by mistake. If you stuck around this far, thank you for taking some interest and looking even further. To put things simply, Runner’s High Vision is the lessons of our experience from running and how it effects our lives. If there is anything that would benefit us, it would be learning from the activities we enjoy.
Having to dedicate your time and energy into something that would give you a profitable return, is an absolute beneficiary in maturing and growing. Running for me has been a life changer and has changed for the better. Coming from a person that has experienced traumatic events, overwhelmed with anxiety, stresses over the little things, all can take it’s toll. Years later after running, there’s been a list of positive changes I’ve found and made for myself. One of the greatest findings is Runner’s High Vision, a platform for people to share their vision of experiences with running and life lessons.
Beautiful mountains from the Tahoe National Forest.
Runner’s High Benefits
Runner’s high is extremely subjective in that, individuals may experience it differently from one another. We might have the same endogenous endorphins that are produced to allow for the runner’s high experience, but the experience is subjective. For someone that is a more seasoned runner, pain is one of the main attributes of running and there’s no ifs ands or buts. You could be 2 miles or 18 miles in and experience soreness and other types of aggravating pain. It gets to a point when experiencing a runner’s high, that the pain is dissolved, then what follows is the immense focus where the pain you were experiencing after 2 miles or 18 miles was yesterdays problem.
You’re a few miles in, the trails and nature is super neat, and you’re experiencing cloud nine. If you just started getting into running and experiencing for the first time a runner’s high, it’s something like chasing the magic dragon and could be the underlying addiction to most runners. Well, that’s quite an assumption, but for the sake of this topic, yes, chasing after that feel good feeling of the runner’s high is one of the benefits toward good health.
My experiences through runner’s high is very therapeutic to say the least. Having to get out to the trails is partly therapy but so is getting a good training run or race done. The runner’s high doesn’t come to you right away or sometimes not at all. However, you shouldn’t have expectations and chase this feeling as your main objective for running. I’ve gone through many training runs, many races, and to grasp that feeling, it can occur for just a few minutes or nearly an hour. My best interpretation to experiencing this blissful state is having a clear mind, stripping away the anxiety, stress, pain, overwhelming thoughts, and more. If you’re trying to figure out any problems and seeking for a solution or way to resolve the problem, it comes at a time when you’re actually not thinking about the problem. After the run is when it finally dawns on you and the answer reveals itself.
There’s something fascinating about this enigma, that doing an exhaustive yet simple activity such as running, will induce the feeling of weightlessness. I’m not describing being in space with the force of gravity acting on mass, but the accumulation of thoughts that live between your ears temporarily dissolve. A lot of problems I’ve had before I dedicated myself to running had gone through years without resolution. Sitting in front of a therapist and talking about your problems has always been stigmatized, being seen as the lowest of lows in a persons life, when in reality, it’s the best thing for people to have. Not speaking from my own experience, but learning from others that have gone through it is eye opening enough. However, I have no sense of how to go about seeking one and not sure if I could even afford one. But running has always been there for me and has been an attributable method to resolving a number of problems I’ve had and dealt within myself. It’s not that the runner’s high is the ultimate therapy, as for anybody else that really needs to speak to a therapist should do so.
It is the realizations that hit home. Having an understanding and being sympathetic toward my own feelings, developed empathy toward those that experience the same thing or in different ways. For anyone that has to deal with their own anxieties, I feel for you and having running in my life has been a life saver. I don’t want to be preachy about running, but I will say for anyone to discover their passion to dive in and you’ll fall into a transcendental state of awareness and concentration like no other. Artists will proclaim that spending time in front of the canvas and painting is therapeutic in itself. What I believe to be a form of this runner’s high is the insurmountable meditative state, where you have the immense focus and can concentrate on the task at hand.
Aside from the endogenous chemicals that occurs and the flood gates opening unparalleled amounts of quantities, the effects of this runner’s high is to mitigate the pain or even thoughts that would otherwise distract you from carrying on your day.
To be quite honest, even though this may be a deal breaker, having to do a physical and rigorous activity in order to achieve the state of a runner’s high, could actually be a better way to accomplish something you never thought could be done before. But prior to the existence of that mindset, you must find the intrinsic value of forcing yourself to do a task that you found pointless in the first place. If having to make your bed first thing in the morning is the worse than having to wash the dishes later in the day, then you’d be in for a rude awakening. It should be that having to do anything you find resistance that’ll help you to achieve anything else in life that’ll get you one step closer to your goal, making you better at doing anything else you deemed as pointless to be benefitting. Running compared to other athletic activities is the simplest, yet at the same time not the simplest. Putting one foot in front of the other is one thing, but understanding the correct form could be another. And in doing so, running could be as boring as you’d make it to be. The frustrating angst of having to do one particular movement from running versus keeping your mind engaged by having a team and a ball to play with.
However, let’s entertain the fact that having to get into your own head during a run and let’s add another factor, you have no music to entertain you. All you’re left with is the thoughts that swirl in your head. The biggest thing though, is if you are able to get that headspace cleared of clutter. Being able to have a moment of time throughout the day, even if it were as little as two minutes, can help dissolve some of the weight you carry on your shoulders.
There’s no greater high than achieving your goal and making it a reality.
Runner’s High Vision Benefits
This is a platform to help keep the running community together. Even if you’re not part of the running community, hopefully it’ll have some sort of benefit not only through running, but through life lessons as well. The purpose for Runner’s High Vision is to be able to share and help inspire a community of those that are identifying themselves to achieve a goal that is self rewarding. The support of having a community is being able to elevate those to better themselves. Being able to get advice or hear stories from the experienced is a commencement in that the addition of seeking for qualities will only benefit to progress in your quest for new challenges. New challenges not only through running, but in life as well.
Putting together Runner’s High Vision has been a challenge in itself. As for somebody to have just entered the realms of becoming a runner, I challenged myself to learn by approaching strangers, to seek for more information online, and listening to podcasts. Getting myself to know what gear works for me, spending the little money I have to enter races, and traveling to new places by myself, was just the scratch of the surface but becoming experienced with what works for me. But I’ve been there, done that, and will continue this new adventure in promoting Runner’s High Vision to give back to the community that helped me achieve things that are greater than myself. Since I’ve gotten into running, I’ve met great people, I’ve seen great places, and it’s changed my life for the better.
It is the vision I hope will be planted into others new and old. I hope that Runner’s High Vision will be able to reach out to those who share the same values. Being able to achieve the greater good through running, can be implemented in their personal life and I truly mean that. Let your story be heard, share the values you can bring to others, and achieve greatness.
