The qualified state of bliss from Running

Any runner will tell you that if you get moving, putting one foot in front of the other in rapid succession, your brain will release its firm grasp on things like depression, anxiety, and good things start to come.

Our world is filled with things, or for better or worse people that make us crazy. As autumn starts to roll in, the temperatures drop, and the body begins to crave distance. For now my body is letting me put in a run of over an hour run once a week. That hour is savored like whiskey as the world dumps its black misery upon me. Once out on the road, with my shoes on, the tunes going, I may as well be floating on air, because nothing can touch me for that hour.

Any runner will tell you that their best ideas come when running distance. Your body and mind shift from can’t do, to can do. And this is where the benefits come in. Our lives are full of restraints, responsibilities, and limitations. When you run, it is all about what you can do, what is possible.

Of course for those who do not love running, they will read this and think I am crazy, but if you want to try alternative therapy for depression. By a pair of running shoes and find out. Running is about setting goals, small and large, and then achieving them. Depression is the mind’s biochemical way of setting limitations, of saying what you can’t do, what won’t work, what is not possible. When you courageously put one foot in front of the other, a big hill becomes many small steps that lead to the summit.

Photo courtesy of Frech