Dr Shock MD PhD

On pure pedantry the author discusses an article in which the runners high is shown with imaging.
The authors of the article discussed measured the resting endorphin activity in the brains of 10 athletes using PET scans. They then sent the runners out on a 2 hr run. After they returned they put them back in the scanner and looked at endorphin activity again. They compared the images before and after the run to look for what areas of the brain had greater endorphin activity.

This result provides further evidence that the runner's high is caused by endogenous opioid release in the brain. What is interesting to me is that you see similar brain activation for a variety of different types of rewarding events -- whether they be drugs or video games or anything. I seem to remember that they even showed that in academics these parts of the brain are activated when they learn! This similarity of reward activation in a variety of behavioral contexts implies two things: a common system for analyzing rewards and a wide variety of things that humans have found to activate this system. It would appear that it really is "whatever floats your boat" that you find rewarding.

The results and details are presented in this post on pure pedantry

Related post on this blog: What do addiction and running have in common

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Terrific post, go read it. For each reason the author provided literature.
21 Powerful Reasons To Exercise


Just a few examples, I leave it up to you to figure out why I did choose these examples

• Bone strength and prevention of osteoporosis.


• Better night sleep: time-proved "Insomnia Rx".


• Alternative to hormone replacement therapy for postmenopausal women.


• New brain cells development (neurogenesis).

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Exercise can be of help when suffering from depression. I wouldn't go that far that exercise is an antidepressant but it is to my opinion a valuable adjunctive treatment to several other treatments such as antidepressants or cognitive behavioral therapy.


On Brandweek NRX a recent placebo-controlled study published in the September issue of the journal Psychosomatic Medicine is discussed.

Conclusions: The efficacy of exercise in patients seems generally comparable with patients receiving antidepressant medication and both tend to be better than the placebo in patients with depression.

Placebo response rates were high, suggesting that a considerable portion of the therapeutic response is determined by patient expectations, ongoing symptom monitoring, attention, and other nonspecific factors.

Researcher form the department of clinical psychology of the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, The Netherlands did a meta-analysis to examine the effects of activity scheduling on depression, on the relative effects of activity scheduling compared to other treatments and on the longer term effects.

You can read the results and a comment on this study on this blog: Activity Scheduling for treatment of depression

An Italian study also found evidence for antidepressant properties of exercise

Want to start but don't know how, read these 42 Exercise Hacks on Finding Optimism

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