What Is the Runner's High?
Running as Meditation, Transcendence and Transformation
In the book, The Runner's High: Illumination and Ecstasy in Motion (New York: Breakaway Books, 2004), editor Garth Battista has put together 47 individual testimonials by runners who recount their personal experiences of what is usually termed the "Runner's High." Several common denominators emerge from these descriptions that strongly suggest running to be more than a form of exercise; it has all the components of a spiritual experience: meditation, transcendence and transformation.
The Runner's High as Meditation
Several runners describe running as a form of meditation. The rhythm of the run and the cadence of footsteps pounding the surface, coupled with the regular beat of the heart create a "meditative attention" state through which the runner is able to leave his thoughts behind. One runner describes it in this way: "You reach this state of mind only after you've gone through the concentration state, and instead of shifting back to your daytime mind, you fall in to deep mind instead."(57). There is a sense that the runner moves from conscious effort to an effortlessness which many describe as weightlessness, "light and free, animal wild"(76). Worries, nagging fears dissolve as the runner enters a trance state, a "kind of empty and wordless elation"(48).
The Runner's High as Transcendence
Somewhere in this wordless realm, the runner experiences transcendence. The body dissolves into the landscape. The ego becomes muted as the body becomes "synchronized with nature"(80). There is a separation of mind from body which one runner describes as a "shedding of a layer of skin, much like "a snake sheds its casing"(107)."There is a sense of self separating from the body, moving outside the body as one runner experienced when she felt herself up on the rafter, "looking down at [her] race below"(14). Another runner describes it as an act of transcendence: "I'm free from the bonds of gravity, from the laws that bound ordinary people to earth"(226). Many describe this transcendence as an overwhelming feeling of oneness with the universe that emerges halfway through a run like a "miracle"(97).
The Runner's High as Transformation
All runners describe the runner's high as an experience of transformation. There is always a change in one's concept and feeling of the self during the run. Negative thoughts and feelings disappear. A sense of peace and euphoria pervades one's consciousness, a good feeling that many runners say lasts for days, even weeks. There is a profound acceptance of the self, of running as being something that is right for the runner and of the world as being a kind and sacred place. Many claim that after a run, they do not feel overwhelmed by life, but become "eager to face the challenges"(174) that lie ahead. Others write about feeling alive and integrated with their family, their community and the world. All describe a need to continue with running so they can experience the runner's high again. Many have made running a daily ritual or "sacred addiction"(186). One runner insists that the runner's high comes only to "those who love running. It won't happen if you merely run to keep in shape or if it's a chore. You can never force it to happen" (240).
The runner's high is a kind of euphoric interlude experienced by runners who regularly pound the pavement. Avid runner John J. Ratey in Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2008) explains that the body's release of natural opiates is the source of the runner's high. The euphoric feeling is due to the release of extremely high levels of endorphins, neuropeptides ANP and neurotransmitters that function like painkillers in the body (257).
Running Meditation
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