You must log in or # to comment.
I had to stop running like that because my body is much better for looking at than doing things with. But I switched to biking that way and yeah. 4 hours on a bicycle after work every night can almost approximate a monthly therapy session. And what it fails to give in mental health it gives in an ass. Jesus fuck I miss that ass.
Sometimes when I’m biking I force myself to breathe through my nose for a while to dry out a runny nose. If I’m going kind of hard I end up with this look on my face like I’m holding back tears, mouth pinched shut, breathing hard and covered in sweat, and I get self conscious about what other people must be thinking about the scary dude trying to exercise his feelings away.
If I see a scary dude trying to exercise his feelings away I just feel sympathy. Like, I’ve known too many men afraid to cry, and seeing someone exercising and trying to hold back tears feels like he’s probably healthier than many of the guys who struggle with that.
Hell as a woman I bike the pain away too.
Fair, good on ya!
Therapy is expensive & ineffective & a waste of time. Running is free and amazingly therapeutic.
Never done therapy, but running is a waste of time, I can tell you that much. There are a lot of sports and other ways to excercise that are actually fun. Running is boring and pointless.
Running also gets you the benefits of meditation if you do it right. You can easily empty your head and just exist on autopilot while you’re running.
I don’t think that’s mediation.
I can get into ‘the zone’ swimming and cycling, but that’s great fun. Meditation is exhausting, hard work and often leaves me more pissed off than when I started.
Running makes me feel like I’m gonna die
Jiu jitsu on the other hand, i get both excersize and an excuse to choke people out
Understandable running feels like torture at first, got to push through until it feels good.
It’s literally a metaphor for life, “when life gets hard, work harder! And then you see the amazing results of your torturous hard work and you feel absolutely amazing.”
That’s why running is so healthy. It purges & cleanses out all the bullshit and takes you to a higher level where you are healthy again.
Mind becomes clear, feels exactly like the sun coming out after a good heavy rain. Outlook optimistic. Tolerance of other people elevated. Everything elevated.
Because it only feels good once you’ve worked hard enough to get to the next level where you’re achieving the runners high. That is true health.
Conversely, feeling like you want to “choke people out” is pretty much the opposite of health.
As someone who quit running not long after getting to the point I get runners high, you have a point, but also different people can thrive on different forms of cardio. When I ran i found myself rapidly overheating and just generally miserable until I was stoned on feel good chemicals. Bicycling on the other hand was fun enough from the start that I wasn’t struggling to force myself to do it.
When I bought my bike I was struggling to get myself out running every other day. Things like stopping for water made me feel like I was failing. By switching to a different form of cardio, one that I enjoyed, I was able to get into shape without the constant urge to give up. It also came with my knees not hurting.
If you think running is boring & pointless, you clearly haven’t pushed yourself hard & long enough to achieve the “runner’s high.” It is indescribable euphoric bliss & joy & mental clarity!! You would be shouting from the mountaintops you just scaled, shouting with joy for everyone in the world to come run with you because it feels so friggin amazing.
Now imagine football, it’s fun, social, great excercise, collaborative and you feel good afterwards.
Different people find different physical activities beneficial. Some people love team sports, personally I’m not a fan of competitive activities or of games where I feel my physical abilities could let others down. Some people love running, many find that while they don’t love it, they love the physical and mental effects of it; both of which are hard to deny, there’s a reason every competitive sports team makes its players run as part of practice.
Personally I’m a cyclist, because it’s like running, but without the parts that make me not want to run and with added benefits like equipment to mess with and upgrade and the ability to use it to run errands. I also enjoy hiking for exercise because it’s just a long exhausting walk in a beautiful place that I can spend chatting with my wife.
For some people it’s basketball or soccer/football. I have a friend who’s really into gridiron flag football (she actually used to be a runner when she was younger). Sports are great for people who don’t derive meditative effects from solo cardio, but don’t discount those effects.
Some bike rides are me just listening to a podcast or audiobook, but personally I struggle to process my emotions if I’m not taking a walk or a bike ride, and so regularly doing these things is invaluable for my mental health. Runners are often the same way, the act of running can make it difficult to hold on to a thought or to avoid it, which makes it a shortcut to meditation as you just kinda have to observe your thoughts and let them go.
With a side helping of traumatic brain injury.
