Runner’s High: Analogous To Pot High
Does it not sound amazing that the passion for running in many runners is due to high they get after running? Yes this phrase ‘runner’s high’ is as extant as ‘pot high’ for the same convincing biological mechanisms. A study in the University Of Heidelberg, Germany has unveiled the importance of different chemicals in the body that get activated and causes runner’s high when a person runs.
What chemicals are we talking about?
These chemicals are the very familiar cannabinoids present within the body called endocannabinoids which are released when marijuana is consumed. When a person runs, endorphins and endocannabinoids are synthesized. Endorphins produced in brain are independent to those in rest of the body and cannot cross this brain-blood barrier but endocannabinoids can. The latter is believed to be much better basis to explain why runners undergo an exultant rush while they exert.
What does the study prove?
Firstly, a model was created to illustrate the motivation that pushes human to exercise. For this, a lab mice was placed in a running wheel in a mouse cage where it would run voluntarily, continuously covering great distances at high speeds in the wheel. It was observed that once they started running they continued for long with a chemical induced motivation. The same chemical compounds are released in mice as in humans.
To have a definite line of distinction between the effects of different chemicals, a series of behavioral experiments was conducted. The level of pain and anxiety were measured for mice. They were categorized into groups. One of the groups was introduced to the drugs that blocked endocannabinoids and other was introduced to those that blocked endorphins. The former blocking changed the physiological response as the mice were not less anxious and experienced less pain sensitivity anymore. But the latter blocking showed no alteration in the behavior.
Another genetic approach, in which the cannabinoid receptors were eliminated from the forebrains of the mice showed that mice stopped experiencing the emotional benefit from running which it would receive otherwise after running the comparable distances for a couple of days. These responses are comparable to those in human beings.
What this study presents has allowed us to infer that the feeling of being stoned is comparable to the feeling of being high after sprint. So if you run a mile and ignore the sweat oozing out plus the lungs throbbing, you may sense the same high as you get after smoking a joint. One has to try it to believe if it’s true in his case.
