Scientists have discovered why running makes you happy | Hacker News Reader

Scientists have discovered why running makes you happy

washingtonpost.com

105 pointskungfudoi92 comments

I'm another person who hates running but do it moderately as it's a very efficient form of exercise.

I also do intermittent fasting, which also change you leptin levels. One thing I've noticed is that I have less hunger pangs when fasting when I can do a run in the middle of the day.

Also, I find it easier to find motivation to exercise when fasted than not. As a matter of fact, I only run on days I fast these days. There was another article earlier this week about this study which says exactly that and theorise that it might be an evolutionary thing, if you're skinny and hungry, you need to hunt, if you're satieted and fat, you're OK with just napping for a while.

*edit: Adding the article https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=fr&tl=en&u=h...

> I'm another person who hates running but do it moderately as it's a very efficient form of exercise

Interesting point of view! Many people run despite the harm it may cause (esp. to their knees and back) because they love to run. But if you remove enjoyment out of the equation, I assume there are other forms of exercises that are safer and as "efficient" as running.

That's precisely why I took up swimming to work monofinning recently. Cycling and nordic walking is also better for the joints.

Everything about running is efficient:

- you can't cheat and ignore it, you run or you walk (you can coast while biking, you can swim slowly, etc...)

- you can open your door and star running. Mist other sports, you need to go somewhere before you start doing the sport (swimming pool, mountain, dojo, etc...)

- no other sport I have done build cardio in a few weeks like running does.

Keep in mind that I don't try to promote running, I literally hate it, I just enjoy the results given the low time investment.

I wonder how much longer you'll have to run before you stop repeating your "I hate running" mantra.

Running isn't terribly efficient. I can walk at the same rate that most people jog, and I use half as much energy.

The assertion is that it's an efficient exercise, not an efficient form of movement. It's actually an efficient exercise because it's less efficient in terms of movement than alternatives (which were listed).

It's boring, painful, and promotes over-use injuries. Most people don't wear proper shoes, or run with proper form, putting extra stress on their joints or striking on their heels.

Endurance running isn't great training for anything besides endurance running - any sort of sport-based activity includes lots of short sprints, lateral changes in direction, back-pedaling, jumping, not extended straight-line, moderate-pace running. If pure cardio is what you want, jumping rope is more efficient.

I think jumping rope is even more boring than running + you can cheat by slowing down.

I have seriously looked into "running properly" and have tried to run barefoot a lot (which forces you to not heel-strike etc...) but I'm in a cold climate and it physically impossible ot run barefoot in the winter, and I never managed to get used to pebbles!

I keep my distance to about ~ 21 km / week max (typically less), which I am thinking is low enough not to do too much damage.

All other form of sports you are talking about require me to go somewhere, etc... which burns a lot of time. I enjoy other sports (hiking, swimming, skiing to certain extent, used to sail and do martial arts, ice skating) when I can, but not as regularly, and I'll argue not enough, because of time constraint.

There are at least a few great shoes out there that will let you run with (more) proper form and still give you some protection from the cold and rocks. Have you given any of them a try? Admittedly, you'll never have as good form in a shoe, but you can get close.

Yes, I use slightly oversized Vivo barefoot running shoes.

I don't really disagree with your points, but I think you are still arguing something slightly different than the original statement. The original supporting points make it obvious that efficiency is referring the the whole of the exercise routine, not just the portion spent exerting yourself. A sport based activity may be a better workout, but you generally don't start that workout as soon as you step out your door.

> If pure cardio is what you want, jumping rope is more efficient.

I imagine it is. I suspect getting the majority of your exercise doing something the human body has evolved to be extremely efficient at is not the most efficient use of the time, depending on your goal. I think one of the major benefits of running (even though I hate doing it) is its convenience (which sort of ties into how efficiency was being used previously).

It really depends on what you consider endurance running. A marathon distance is quite different than a mile and even a 5k. But all the above require training at various paces. You tend to train your endurance, lactate threshold, vo2 max and pure speed in different ratios depending on the distance. Granted many runners don't push themselves that much but to each their own...

As for boring I have been doing it for 25 years so I'd have to disagree. I have made most of my friends through running as well as my fiance. I have run a high 4 minute mile and a sub 2:50 marathon. I have run boston twice. It is my constant companion through the highs and lows of my life. I'm also basically the same weight I was in college 20ish years later. Any place I visit I can get a workout in with a pair of shorts and shoes. I have run in london, istanbul, amsterdam, paris, buenos aires, vancouver, rome, venice and many american cities and many rural areas and digesting a new place at a slower pace than driving is really special in my opinion (I realize I am very fortunate to have been even able to visit those places).

I would also argue that it's not running that promotes injury. It's the 40+ hours a week of sitting most of us spend on our asses. How do you expect your hamstrings to work smoothly when they live in that shortened position most of the time?

I run about 30 miles a week currently (much less than my 50 to 60 of yesteryear) and I do find as I get older I need to spend more time on auxiliary exercises to be a more balanced athlete and human.

Anyways... Probably not going to convince you but at least this is a counterpoint.

Actually there is a third option the Young Shuffle.

I started running regularly about 30 years ago. I hated it for about 5 years, and then began to enjoy it. Now, I look forward to it, enjoy it, and miss it when for some reason I can't.

It's not time wasted, either, because I work on my most difficult programming problems while running.

I have found that switching to the "POSE" running regime has eliminated running injuries - not had a running injury in over 10 years, so with good form, running can be safe. Before switching, I had 20+ years of intermittent injuries. For normal people I can only think of skipping with weighted handles that would go beyond running.

> Many people run despite the harm it may cause (esp. to their knees and back)

There has never been a study to my knowledge that running hurts your knees or back. Any study I have seen shows that it helps your knees, but it may suffer from some selection bias.

Remember, just because "common wisdom" says something does not make it true. This is one of those cases.

Here's an article that cites two studies that show runners suffer from fewer knee issues.

> The other U.S. study was from 2013 and involved more than 74,000. The runners reported a lower rate of knee arthritis and a lower risk of needing knee replacement surgery.

http://www.solfoot.com/blog/how-to-protect-your-knees-health...

I found that when fasting, if I get hungry a good food substitute is a one to two mile walk. It kills the hunger. I suspect without proof that once you force the body to pull from the fat stores that it kinda notices the fact that it's got a food source already. Excersize in the morning is also a decent breakfast substitute for me.

To add to it caffeine also. When I'm fasting and get hungry, anything that increase fatty acid oxidation (runnning walking caffeine weightlifting, etc) makes the hunger go away.

Quite the opposite for me. I find caffeine makes me hungry after about an hour or so I only have 1 drink per day.

Do you drink black coffee /tea? Or does you caffeinated beverage include sugar?

Tea with milk and sugar.

tea is pretty weak on caffeine and depending on the sugar you're + what's in the milk that would likely easily trump the caffeine effect. Caffeine increases lipid oxidation so you get more energy from fat. But sugar will be used up first and if it's enough to raise blood sugar, the drop will spike hunger more than the increased leptin from fat oxidation can stop it.

I wonder what you mean by "efficient form of exercise".

Can you compare it to swimming and rowing (the sliding seat kind).

BTW, I don't run.

I won't go as far as saying I hate it. I just don't enjoy it. Also, we have runners in the family. Every single one of them has had problems with their knees, ankles, hips, tendons, etc. A couple of surgeries here and there too.

I do swim and row. I enjoy both and find them very relaxing and mentally stimulating. I swim both at our local olympic-size pool and lake for the open experience. I also row at the same lake.

My definition of efficiency is, loosely stated, using the most major muscle groups per unit time. This means a bunch of things depending on what you are trying to achieve.

For weight loss, for example, I think it is hard to beat swimming or rowing. Swimming, in particular, probably takes the lead because you expend calories two fold: The first is moving. The second is thermally, as you are immersed in water colder than your core temperature and your body has to deal with that the entire time you are immersed.

For strength and muscle tone both are good but I'd probably suggest rowing might have a bit of an advantage because you engage muscles through a longer range of motion under a non-trivial load.

See my other reply about what I mean by efficient. Note that swimming will pull less from fat reserve because of the cold, still a very good sport, but you do need to get to a body of water.

> Also, we have runners in the family. Every single one of them has had problems with their knees, ankles, hips, tendons, etc. A couple of surgeries here and there too.

Swimming gets points for having a lower risk of injury, but OTOH, running is good for bone density which can help avoid injuries down the road.

Were your relatives competitive runners who trained hard for races? I think injuries are much less common in casual runners who rarely train to exhaustion, and never try to power through oncoming conditions like shin splints.

Yes, marathon runners. You are exactly on point.

Since I've began intermittent fasting (Only eating in between 8am-8pm) my appetite and amount I can eat to be satisfied has decreased tremendously. It's crazy how quickly changes can be made to your body

eating between 8am-8pm ? thats entire day! How is that fasting ?

Pretty sure he meant 8pm - 8am and that's probably including sleep. So I'm assuming it goes a little like this:

Get home, exercise, 8pm, eat a meal, eat snacks, get to bed, wake up before 8am, eat a meal, go to work.

Breakfast... break fast

Although religious in origin, I suspect that the idea of an overnight fast became a religious doctrine because of the clear health benefits. Just like many other food prohibitions in religion that have the net effect of improved public health and food safety.

Eating during the day when active raises or at least supports an active metabolism. Eating before going to sleep cause excess energy to be stored.

One can objectively cut through the diet fad, and general weightless noise by looking at the unequivocally consistent success of body builders and athletes in losing fat. This suggests that caloric deficit via increased activity is better then caloric deficit by reducing intake (generally athletes consume more calories then a typical diet, just not as many more as they burn when they are 'cutting').

The effects of the opposite behavior seem to confirm this. Sumo wrestlers build mass by eating a diet high in carbs and sleeping a lot. Mauritanian women traditionally drank camel milk and slept a lot to fatten up before marriage.

So eating the 'entire day' but stopping at least 2-4 hours before sleep seems likely to be at least moderately effective. I wonder if there's been a study... ;)

> One can objectively cut through the diet fad, and general weightless noise by looking at the unequivocally consistent success of body builders and athletes in losing fat. This suggests that caloric deficit via increased activity is better then caloric deficit by reducing intake (typically athletes consume more calories then a typical diet, just not as many more as they burn when they are 'cutting').

It's not consistent. You're only seeing the results on the people it works for.

When we study whether exercise helps people lose weight we tent to see that either it doesn't help, or that it's counter productive and people put on body fat.

People:

1) over estimate how many calories they burn during exercise

2) under estimate how many calories are in food

And then they eat a treat which they feel they've earned, putting them into caloric surplus.

You may say 'yes but we just need to tell them not to eat that treat and they'd be in calorific deficit', and while true it's obviously not going to work because "stop eating so much" has been the consistent message since the 1970s and it obviously doesn't work.

Obese people aren't obese because they sleep a lot or because they don't do any exercise. (I know obese people who do 5k in 25 minutes). Obese people are obese because they eat too much of the wrong food.

Food/drink intake is probably like 90% of it, yeah. It's important to keep track of calories, absolutely avoid shit food and do the right kinds of workouts.

I think we're saying exactly the same thing, and I agree that people have the incorrect casual estimations of exercise calories vs food calorie density.

However...

"It's not consistent. You're only seeing the results on the people it works for."

I think this isn't correctly stated, and dangerously gives one the impression that athletes are born not made.

In fact, it is extraordinarily consistent. Outside of disease processes anyone who takes up training like an athlete will begin matching the physique of an athlete. People are athletes buy choice, not by physiological imperative, and this is proven out extensively by people who take up athletic behavior anywhere at any time in life.

As I pointed out with the Sumo example, I'm specifically including all behaviors of athletes not just the exercise portion. That was my point about the value of 'fasting' before going to sleep. Something most athletic diets recommend (also eating more and smaller meals even with the same total calories per day).

As you point out it is psychologically difficult to reduce calories with diet alone. This psychological effect becomes increasingly successful at causing us to consume excess calories the longer or larger a deficit we attempt to maintain. This nearly invariably results in a bounce back effect, and often resulting in a higher 'set weight'. The net effect of diets being a progressive increase in weight over time.

Athletes are consistently successful, dieters are consistently unsuccessful (with the exception of anorexia).

It makes sense that this is true when you start digging into it. Along with improved self image and mood a higher metabolism allows athletes to hold a better physique for longer even with excess calories, while a dieter will 'rebound' more quickly due to lowered metabolism, and the bodies tendency to store fat in response to famine. Further, other than protein sparing diets the diet only approach can lead to loss of muscle as the body consumes it for energy, so after any success with dieting taking in excess calories leads to muscle being replaced with fat.

Eating a bunch of Twinkies is bad, eating them right before going to sleep is worse.

> In fact, it is extraordinarily consistent. Outside of disease processes anyone who takes up training like an athlete will begin matching the physique of an athlete. People are athletes buy choice, not by physiological imperative, and this is proven out extensively by people who take up athletic behavior anywhere at any time in life.

They only become athletic if they keep doing it, and many people are for a variety of reasons unable to keep doing it, which is why "exercise to lose weight" is unhelpful advice and is no longer part of the public health message on obesity. It's still really important to get people to exercise. Just don't claim weight loss as one of the benefits.

eating within a specific period of time long before you actually go to bed (become sedentary). I wake up anywhere between 7-10 am, immediately go top heavy with big breakfast -- you're going to be moving about the entire day. By dinner time (like 6 or 7), I'm only having a milkshake or something <200 calories. Go to bed around 1 or 2 am.

Based on more research on mice?

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1550413114...

I love the graphic with this paper....

Try the 7 minute workout (or similar). It's much more efficient than running.

Yet another tale of mice and assumptions, as best I can make out. Of course, I'm one of those runners who never gets this mythical (to me) high - even when I was super active (3 runs of about an hour each per week) I hated doing it (tldr - basic running is cheap exercise).

I know people who love to run and talk about the high because they take it for granted all runners have it. Now they can blame my leptin levels!

I always put it down to my dopamine responses, as I don't get the same feeling from eating, or any of the other well known things that elicit a dopamine release, and assumed excercise was the same thing.

There's an interesting chain of thought there - I love a good sugar or caffeine rush, but find eating meals to be an annoying chore in my daily life.

I hate running so much that, when I was younger and had to choose a more agreeable form of fitness, I took up Chinese Kickboxing (Sanda). Yes, I prefer getting kicked in the face to running, about the most intolerable form of exercise I know.

I wish I could get that joy from running, but my entire body hurts, from the inside-out, when I do it. It made it hard to get good cardio training when I was training for a fight, I usually substituted lots and lots of swimming, which I find far more enjoyable and seems to do a better job of training cardio without injuring joints you'll need later.

I love running and agree swimming is better for the joints, but the cardio workout I get from swimming is not comparable to what I get from running. While I'm a very good swimmer, it's harder for me to reach the same level of exercise intensity in water versus on land.

With the recent biking renaissance here in the US (which means easy availability of high-quality parts and more widely-adopted standards for equipment) and due to my consistently sustaining muscle injuries after 30 years of running, I've turned to biking to maintain cardio.

Cycling is much easier on the joints and easier (for a runner like me) to achieve and maintain intensity, though it does have its hazards. (Accidents will happen.)

Back on topic, I don't get the same kind of "high" biking as I do running. The biking high feels more adrenaline-based, laced as it is with anxiety, aggressiveness, and irritability. Running for me induces a more blissful harmonious state of consciousness than does cycling.

YMMV

Somewhat related as you mentioned swimming and cycling, but both of those forms of exercise can lead to decreased bone density unless you are supplementing them with walking or running. Cyclists in particular often have lower back problems from sitting with their back in a weird position for long periods of time. That's not to say they aren't good forms of exercise, but it is also good to get some sort of impact based exercise as well (like running or walking). Of course too much running is probably bad for your joints and anecdotally I know a lot of older runners with chronic injuries, so it's tough to strike the right balance.

What kind of cycling do you do? I don't like riding near cars, so I do almost all of my riding in parks and forests. When I do ride around cars, I can never maintain a good pace. I'm constantly stopping for intersections.

On the other hand, when I'm on a trail, The anxiety of contending with cars is gone, and I can keep a high pace for much longer.

The best is mountain biking on single track. No cars, no sign of civilization, just wilderness.

I find mountain biking also is also a bit better for core and upper body fitness than road cycling as there is a lot more variation in movements eg obstacles, drops, grade changes etc. Apparently the extra bumpiness also help avoid the bone thinning effects of road cycling - but that is probably completely negated by full suspension bikes these days.

Alas due to circumstances, I've swapped MTBing for cycle commuting. I can no longer say I enjoy riding bikes - but it still beats public transport or being stuck in traffic.

> I wish I could get that joy from running, but my entire body hurts, from the inside-out, when I do it.

Running doesn't have to hurt! As long as you do it regularly and increase the length of your runs gradually.

> It made it hard to get good cardio training when I was training for a fight

Common alternative (or complement) to running in fighting sports is rope skipping.

Swimming is great but requires more technique and training discipline to be as efficient a cardio training. Plus you need a swimming pool nearby that isn't too crowded.

The high is actually explained by the psychology concept of "flow experience". To get a high, you need to involved deeply in an activity, completely immersed within it as to become part of it and lose your sense of self temporarily. You'd need to be doing something you really care about, take seriously, constantly improve and constantly feel challenged. Maybe you could change exercise to one you like better? You may be missing out on what could be the best, most happy hours of your life, and instead running is the opposite to you.

I think you just described why I get stuck tinkering on the computer instead of going outside for a run :-(

Yes! But we grow to like any skillset which we allow ourselves the time to get good in. Sometimes you have to look hard for forms of exercise that you didn't consider before, maybe something will eventually rock your boat as much as tinkering with technology, even in terms of intellectual challenges.

This study is from 2008, and used PET scans to show beta-endorphin displacing a radioactively-labelled opioid antagonist. Pretty good evidence opioids are in play when people say that running gets them high, as far as I can tell: http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Gjermund_Henriksen/publi...

"Your ad blocker is on." No I do not have a adblock installed. I have a hosts file which removes the worst tracking sites over the internet.

On top of this, they have a Subscribe wall. Who exactly runs washingtonpost.com? And why do they need to get personal with me?

Moreover is the content going to add to anything more than we know about endorphins all ready?

You should get an adblocker then. uBlock Origin blocks all the stuff you were complaining about for me, and you should be able to use it in addition to the hosts file (or put the hosts file directly into it as a filter).

And they break selection. Urgh.

This can be fixed by blocking inline-script.

> Moreover is the content going to add to anything more than we know about endorphins all ready?

We know that you can give people endorphin blockers before they exercise and they still report feeling better after exercise.

This article is about leptin, not about endorphins.

Moreover is the content going to add to anything more than we know about endorphins all ready?

Maybe you'll need to quit complaining and read the article to find out.

That is the problem. There is no way to read the article without divulging my details.

It's a very short article describing this preliminary finding:

"...people with lower fat-adjusted leptin levels, such as high-performance marathon runners, could potentially be more susceptible to the rewarding effects of running and thus possibly more inclined to exercise."

That's basically it. Some folks get more of a 'high' from exercise than others. Big news, right? While I love the research, the way that page redirects and all the ads it's serving up (21 just now) are complete bullshit, and the information in the 'article' is not at all worth bothering with it in my opinion.

Which also gives lie to the title, claiming that I would get benefits. Until I become high-performance and a marathon runner, I get nothing.

Ad blocker blocking is becoming increasingly common.

I use the Stylebot extension to strip away this sort of cruft on sites I visit frequently - it's almost always just setting 'display: none;' on a couple of elements.

Another offender is Redfin. I'm running uBlock, and the site loads totally fine with no notifications about adblockers, but the search button is grayed out. Took me a while to figure it out

I have JavaScript off. I can read the article just fine.

Here's the story without the crap: https://www.jottit.com/dbt2x

Long-distance running makes me feel absolutely horrible, with Tabata 4 minute sprints after 3 minutes I can't feel my legs anymore and I can sleep after drinking 5 cups of strong coffee - does it mean my body is wrong or another scientific article is? I do running because my body needs it but hate it profoundly, and together with long cold showers and weightlifting it's about training my will to overcome unpleasantness to the point of torture. Only once in my life I got runner's high, and it wasn't anything special.

On the other hand, how to change your body to get the leptin response mentioned in the article? If it is genetic, am I out of luck and these kinds of exercise will make me feel horrible all the time?

I used to exercise regularly like this (not running but another sport) and recently I had to stop cold turkey for a variety of reasons. Boy do I feel better. I sleep better. My mood is better. I don't hurt all the time. I eat more moderately. I lost weight (some muscle no doubt). tldr I think I must have been overdoing it.

It makes me wonder in this culture of exercise we live in, how many people end up not doing any exercise because they think it's all or nothing, full-on torture vs couch potato.

Anecdotally I have observed that there are two groups of people. Runners and lifters. The one love all kinds of explosive strength exercises, the other low intensity high volume. Sprinters are lifters btw.

Maybe influenced by person's proportion of fast-twitch vs slow-twitch muscle fibers?

As a lifelong exerciser, this squares with my observations as well. I'd include biking in the running category too.

Personally, I get no pleasure from long runs and find them to be incredibly painful and hard to recover from. Whereas being under a barbell in a squat is my happy place.

Do you have any information that cold showers are really beneficial? I spent a month doing it, saw very little benefit - other than a mental pat on the back because obviously enduring something I didn't enjoy must be good for me. I can't find anything convincing that a cold shower really does much.

What about this http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14625449 ...

and this http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22442371 ?

Wondering if walking or other exercise triggers the same thing then.

It does for me. But I've noticed that it only works if I go for a walk early in the morning. There is a tranquility in the morning which I can't find in any other time during the day.

I find where I walk makes a big difference, it's much better if I can avoid any traffic.

If you do not like "running" you could try sprinting instead! Or lifting weights. I hate running, but love sprinting. Sure it feels nice when you jog and it feels like you could go on for hours, but compare that to the "pump" witch feels like an orgasm.

Not being funny, but no form of cardio makes me happy. I always feel way worse afterwards. I have never experienced any kind of endorphin high that I know of from exercise.

For those with an ad blocker, just click the 'x' to stop loading the page before it redirects and you can read the article.

Interestingly, I clicked over from a Google search for the title, and got an interstitial demanding my email that I could not dismiss. I am pretty sure that's a violation of Google's cloaking rules since there is no way to dismiss it. Here's hoping they get deindexed or at least penalized, but I won't hold my breath.

You can inspect element and hide the popover div. There's probably an extension out there that does this automatically.

Or if you are on Firefox or Safari, click the "reader mode" before you get redirected.

When available it is usually better than the adblocked verison.

I hate running. I've always hated running. I run 6 miles once a week, and I listen to music just to distract myself from how godawful boring it is. But I have to keep doing it or else I'll run out of steam halfway through a boxing round and get my ass handed to me.

"It's not all in your mind - it's leptin."

I sense Descartes here.

Um, we've known about running endorphines for decades?

first result for google is eight years ago

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/27/health/nutrition/27best.ht...

scientific studies from 1996 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC474733/

Well, now instead of endorphins, they can say leptins.

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i thought it was because of elevated anandamide levels

Sounds pretty thin.

related (ok, not actually related, but funny): http://www.savagechickens.com/2008/04/endorphins.html

Articles that have titles like "Scientists have proven that ___ will make your life perfect" I find are often misleading.

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