What I remember
when I talk about running:
Stress fading away.
Proponents of exercise have long sung its praises as a way of staying physically healthy, but there is increasing evidence that it has mental health benefits as well. Miller et al (2018) found that exercise (and specifically running) helped reduce the impact of chronic stress on the brain.
The scientists compared stressed and unstressed mice that either had access to a running wheel or not. Mice that were able to exercise mitigated some of the negative impacts of stress, whilst mice that were unable to exercise showed a reduction in the long-term potential of their hippocampal function (the part of the brain responsible for learning and memory).
In honour of World Book Day the poem references Haruki Murakami’s excellent meditation on running and life ‘What I Talk About When I Talk About Running’, which itself was a play on Raymond Carver’s ‘What We Talk About When We Talk About Love’.
Original research: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nlm.2018.01.008