Running and mental wellbeing

When I first started running back in 2009 I had a good but not overly challenging or stressful job. I was running to get fit and for the challenge of covering the distance, back then in as faster time as possible.

In 2014 I took on a more senior role. Around the same time I had decided to get back into ultra running and so became more focused on training, running around 10 times a week, usually morning and night, often to and from work. Its fair to say that my new role came with some fairly large expectations and projects I was responsible for, but alongside this I was running twice a day most days and coping quite nicely with the pressure, challenge and responsibilities.

Increasing the weekly mileage resulted in my first, and to this day only major injury, a simple ITB strain, which kept me out for around 6 weeks. I couldn’t run, work remained busy and challenging and all of a sudden I was coming home saying things like ‘I’ve had such a stressful day’, worrying about work at night and over the weekends. Not for one second did I link these feelings to not running.

However, 6 weeks on I was training again, slowly at first but running again. Within days, I stopped not sleeping at night and stopped worrying about work over the weekends. It took this to make me realise that running had become a way for me to control my mental wellbeing.

This was a major turning point. If I was ever having a bad day, I would go for a run at lunch. Because I was aware of it, I would recognise being in a bad mood, stressed or anxious when getting changed and coming back from a run, usually a relatively fast one because I was trying to de-stress, in a massively improved mindset.

Many of the people I know who run, recognise the benefits to their mental wellbeing that running brings so surely there must be some truth in the fact that running, or more so physical exercise, is a recognised method for helping people to deal with issues of mental health.

To this day, aside from training for stupid ultra-marathon distance races, mental wellbeing is one of my main reasons for running.

So, what does the science say…?

Let me be clear, I am not a scientist, I am not a doctor nor am I am psychologist. But I know Professor of Applied Physiology who did some research for me and provided some empirical information to support this article.

A study, published in the journal of Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, found that running mitigates the negative impacts chronic stress has on the hippocampus, the part of the brain responsible for learning and memory. “Exercise is a simple and cost-effective way to eliminate the negative impacts on memory of chronic stress” said author Jeff Edwards.

Inside the hippocampus, memory formation and recall occur optimally when the synapses or connections between neurons are strengthened over time. That process of synaptic strengthening is called long-term potentiation or LTP. Chronic or prolonged stress weakens the synapses, which decreases LTP and ultimately impacts memory.

Carek et al, in the International Journal of Pshyhiarty in Medicine 2011, published a paper called ‘Exercise for the treatment of depression and anxiety’.

They reference that 340 million people worldwide are affected by depression; 16% of the US population will meet criteria for major depression in their lifetime, with women being 1.7 times more likely to develop the disorder than men.

Further, they reference that the treatments for depression and anxiety are multiple and have varying degrees of effectiveness. Although options for pharmacologic treatment have expanded significantly in the past 20 years, between one and two thirds of patients will not respond to the first anti-depressant prescribed and 15-33% will not respond to multiple interventions.

Physical activity has been shown to be associated with decreased symptoms of depression and anxiety. Conversely, physical inactivity appears to be associated with the development of psychological disorders. Specific studies support the use of exercise as a treatment for depression and exercise compares favourably to antidepressant medications as a first-line treatment for mild to moderate depression and has been shown to improve depressive symptoms when used as a support to medications. Whilst not extensively studied, exercise has been shown to be an effective and cost-efficient treatment alternative for a variety of anxiety disorders. Whilst effective, exercise has not been shown to reduce anxiety to the level achieved by psycho-pharmaceuticals.

Habitual exercise correlates to a heightened level of mental health and wellbeing and reduced feelings of anxiety regardless of gender. In a study of 22,073 female college students aged 18-24, the study author, Adams, found that women who perceived their overall health as good, very good or excellent were, respectively 1.22, 1.78 and 2.61 times more likely to participate in regular cardiovascular exercise.

So, the medical opinion, of which there is so much more than I have referenced here, supports physical exercise, although it talks about moderate levels not ultra-runner levels, as an effective form of treatment mental wellbeing.

I for one am not surprised!

Why do you run? Mental health? Physical health? Or some other reason?