Research has proved that running is one of the best mood enhancers.The following are some of the benefits of running:
Sharpens Focus and Improves Concentration
Running helps in sharpening your focus and improving your concentration. Because, running gives enough exercise not only to your body but also to your mind. It helps in stimulating the right kind of neurotransmitters (chemicals that transfer nerve signals).
Offers Relief From Stress & Anxiety
Running greatly enhances the individual’s esteem and confidence levels. The individual starts feeling better after he/she started the running exercise. Running, thus, prepares an individual to cope up with the day to day stress in a better manner.
Boosts Confidence
The very fact that an individual is consistently able to wake up and carry out his running activity every day without fail, instills lot of confidence in the individual. This confidence will spill over to other activities as well.
Enhances your Mood
Researchers have found that running is the best mood enhancer. It stimulates neurotransmitters such as dopamine, epinephrine and serotonin. All these help in enhancing a person’s mood. Apart from this, it also increases endorphin levels. But too much of endorphin indicates that an individual is over stretching his/her limits of endurance. It results in symptomatic abnormality called “runner’s high”.
Helps in Combating Addiction
Running offers a welcome departure from addictions. The very fact that the person is productively preoccupied results in so many other benefits. One does not need any extraneous stimuli for enhancing the sense of well being, as running ensures it quite effectively and adequately. In fact may therapists suggest running or brisk walking as one of the effective means of combating one’s craving for false sense of euphoria.
It may be hard to believe that running actually results in enhancing one’s mental health profile. But it is true as the mind is part and parcel of the body. As they say, only a healthy body can accommodate a healthy mind. So, go ahead and run not only for a better body but also a better mind.
