The One Thing Staving Off My Mental Collapse
Vintage Nordstrom
By Leslie Price
Whenever I talk to my friends honestly about my new pandemic habit, I sound like some sort of late-night infomercial. The claims do seem too good to be true, like how I feel much less stressed out, and how I can finally think clearly, and how, as a lifelong insomniac, I am finally sleeping like a rock.
It’s running. That’s it. That’s my big new discovery.
Prior to this phase of my life, I was never a runner, nor have I been particularly fitness-focused. Growing up in the ‘80s and ‘90s, working out was tied to body image and weight loss. I don’t recall anyone pitching exercise to me as a way to help my brain; instead it always felt punitive, a way to keep your body in line. It’s only recently that I’ve started to learn that exercise, particularly cardio, actually confers real mental benefits.
Last summer, with the weight of another interrupted and abnormal school year bearing down on me, I decided to do something completely out-of-character for myself, which was start trying to run. At 40, this was definitely humbling and in the beginning, I was walking much more than I was running. To my surprise, though, I improved quickly. At the beginning, it was hard for me to run for more than a few minutes straight; now I’m clocking 30 to 45 minutes at a time and regularly running more than four miles a day.
Thinking about running as a way to wash anxiety, anger, and stress from my brain recalibrated my commitment to it. There was no expectation that it would change the way my body looked. Instead, I knew if I didn’t make the time for a run, I’d have a worse day. If I started to feel anger and anxiety mounting, it meant I needed to go for a run. Afterward, I’d feel downright sanguine about going into year three of a global pandemic. It was miraculous.
The likely reason for the mental-health benefits is that running, like other moderate cardiovascular exercise, produces endocannabinoids. Some experts believe that yoga, meditation, and breathing exercises can also produce a similar high.
I prefer to run outside and don’t get the same payoff on a treadmill. As someone who has spent the majority of her days looking at a screen for the past 20-something years, being outside on a run is one of the rare occasions when I’m not distracted by my technology. Researchers still cannot yet specify why simply going outside is helpful for our mental health, but they know that it is. I try to pay attention to the very base elements of nature I experience on my runs, whether it’s the weak light of the winter sunshine or the shards of ice floating in the water. Aside from whatever the health benefits are (not a doctor here), it’s a small thing I can focus on that isn’t parenting or the pandemic or whatever the current emergency is at the moment.
Running is free. Of course, there’s a time commitment. And you can still buy gear, if you want. I typically wear an old fleece and regular leggings, but I did purchase one absurd-looking pair of sneakers designed to run on snow and ice, and a pair of washable gloves.