
What happens to our brains when we exercise and how it makes us happier - LeonW
http://blog.bufferapp.com/why-exercising-makes-us-happier
======
zacharyvoase
Interesting that very few of these life hacking blog posts attempt to draw a
distinction between different types of exercise. A marathon (or training for
one) is a very different form of stress to a low-rep high-intensity power or
oly lifting session, and I would expect their neurological effects to be miles
apart.

Regarding the endorphin hypothesis, there's another parallel hypothesis which
is that the good feelings of exercise are just a symptom of oxygen deprivation
in the brain:

    
    
        Altitude-chamber tests have shown that as oxygen deprivation
        increases, some victims experience a sense of increasing
        well-being, even euphoria, while they’re losing the ability
        to function in a thoughtful, coordinated manner.
    

Source: [http://www.planeandpilotmag.com/pilot-talk/ntsb-
debriefer/a-...](http://www.planeandpilotmag.com/pilot-talk/ntsb-
debriefer/a-deadly-sense-of-euphoria.html)

~~~
ciupicri
I saw recently a show on Discovery about the rescue swimmer training program
and they mentioned that euphoria is one of the symptoms of oxygen deprivation.
At one moment one of the candidates stayed too much under water and fainted,
yet when they pulled him outside, he had a grin on his face and looked
euphoric.

~~~
Roelven
I have trained in swimming for a big part of my youth, not competition but
skills. When practicing swimming under water all teachers were certain to warn
us to not push too far. If you are reaching your limits there is a small
window where you don't feel anything anymore, which you can possibly ignore by
a feeling of "I can do this", which makes you euphoric as well. Combined with
lack of oxygen the euphoria will actually put your life at risk while your
down there being happy...

------
ZanderEarth32
Good post, but I think there is too much emphasis in general on tracking and
logging workouts.

I find the whole tracking and logging weights, reps and feelings while working
out to be daunting and pointless. Maybe it's because I am not a "I'm going to
start working out and dieting" type person, rather I just live a healthy
lifestyle by design. I don't "diet", I just try to eat healthy in general. I
don't have a "work out routine", I just try to be physical every day. It makes
the whole exercise process more a part of my natural life, rather than
something I have to schedule.

I enjoy going to the gym and getting a good workout, doing whatever I feel
like at the moment. The important part to me is working up a sweat and getting
my heart pumping, not how many reps with a certain weight I did. I can see if
you have a goal of weight loss or increasing your strength to a certain level
that can be measured by numbers, but if you are aiming for general health, why
do you need to keep a detailed log? Just try to exercise everyday, regardless
of what that includes.

If you do keep a detailed log of your workouts, what kind of actionable data
does that information provide you? Do you refer back to it daily, weekly,
monthly and try to optimize your workouts based on your previous history? If
so, how?

~~~
measuredincm
Tracking your workouts is important for debugging later - if you're not
getting the results you want, how can you figure out the issue if you don't
know what you've been doing?

If your goal is "general health" and you're doing okay, you're lucky (or you
should set harder / more specific goals!) But as an example, I thought I was
eating well, but when I started tracking my calories for a few months, I
realized I had underestimated my daily calorie intake by about 400 calories,
and I was still eating way too many carbs for what I considered to be a "low-
carb" diet.

I'm also on Fitocracy (was using spreadsheets before) to track weightlifting -
tracking is a necessity for lifting IMO.

~~~
ZanderEarth32
I am not familiar with Fitocracy but it seems to be getting much love here.
Part of my dislike for tracking and measuring fitness might come from my
experience with cumbersome apps that make the process a pain. I used Fitness
Buddy for a period, and found it way to complicated and in-depth to make
tracking how much weight I lifted and the reps quickly between exercises. I'll
give Fitocracy a shot, and see if I change my mind.

As a side note, I do like tracking how much I walk, but not for debugging, but
for motivation. I'd like to hit a 100 miles before the end of the year just by
walking at lunch, but for no other reason that personal pride I guess.

~~~
brianmwang
Hi, one of the cofounders behind Fitocracy here.

While much of the discussion here is focused on tracking activity, I want to
mention that we at Fitocracy consider tracking secondary to the social
experience the app and site provide. We believe that the key to long term
success isn't about numbers on a screen but rather, making fitness a part of
your identity and every day life through spending time with people and
communities just like you. I highly recommend you check out the social aspects
of the experience if you download the app :)

------
bazzargh
Endorphins? Where's the link to the science?

[http://www.runnersworld.com/article/0,7120,s6-243-297--
1102-...](http://www.runnersworld.com/article/0,7120,s6-243-297--
1102-0,00.html)

quote:

    
    
      "I believe this endorphin in runners is a total fantasy 
      in the pop culture," said psychobiologist Huda Akil, Ph.D.,
      from the University of Michigan.
    
      The endorphin theory had several problems, the most serious
      being that endorphins are too large to pass through the
      blood-brain barrier that border-patrols your gray matter.

~~~
3am_hackernews
As with most of the neuroscience research, there exists a counter evidence to
this -

Boecker, H., Sprenger, T., Spilker, M.E., Henriksen, G., Koppenhoefer, M.,
Wagner, K.J., Valet, M., Berthele, A., Tolle, T.R. (2008). The Runner's High:
Opioidergic Mechanisms in the Human Brain. Cerebral Cortex DOI:
10.1093/cercor/bhn013[<http://cercor.oxfordjournals.org/content/18/11/2523.full>]

~~~
zerostar07
Other study shows that the effect is mediated through endocannabinoids not
endorphins (But the effect is very real):
<http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14625449>

------
Florin_Andrei
> _If you start exercising, your brain recognizes this as a moment of stress.
> As your heart pressure increases, the brain thinks you are either fighting
> the enemy or fleeing from it._

That's exaggerated. It's simply a reaction to increased level of effort. It's
not always a full-fledged fight-or-flight response, unless it's a quite
strenuous type of exercise.

> _The first 20 minutes of moving around, if someone has been really
> sedentary, provide most of the health benefits. You get prolonged life,
> reduced disease risk — all of those things come in in the first 20 minutes
> of being active._

Makes sense. Exercise a little every day, even if it's some very mild form
like walking. Laying down on the couch all day long is bad.

~~~
nodata
>> all of those things come in in the first 20 minutes of being active.

> Makes sense

Does it? I'd say the _last_ twenty minutes of exercise is what counts - it's
the difficult part.

~~~
dredmorbius
It depends on the exercise modality.

If you're doing cardio for VO2 max or endurance training, end-of-set effort
generally counts for more (though a proper warm-up sets you up for success).

For skill activities, cumulative experience matters, but form breakdown with
fatigue limits single-session gains. Going flat-out all the time isn't
beneficial.

For weight training, hypertrophy (size/mass increase) seems to be based on
time-under-tension and total volume (so that last set matters), while strength
and power training rely on motor-unit recruitment and/or speed, both of which
are maximized when you're relatively fresh.

Even for hypertrophy and endurance, there are diminishing returns to
additional sets. Somewhere between 3-5 sets for a given exercise and you're
not going to see much additional advantage. A training session may include
other movements to stimulate muscle from different angles, at different ranges
of motion, or independently of other synergist/agonist muscles.

The article is discussing _one_ aspect of _one_ form of exercise. The
conclusions it reaches (happiness / mood influences of cardio) aren't
generalizeable to either all effects or all forms of exercise.

------
aezell
The anecdotal evidence in my personal case which supports the ideas in this
blog post is overwhelming. Having started an exercise and diet regimen a few
months ago, I have noticed a vast improvement not just in physical health but
in mental health.

I feel brighter (not in the intelligence sense but in the photonic sense).
That is, I feel like I'm pushing positive energy out into the world instead of
negative energy. It has been a fairly subtle shift over the last 3 months, but
in my mind it is undeniable.

~~~
jpxxx
I like how you put this, I feel the same way. It's like having the sludge
drained out of your head.

------
egonschiele
After spending a couple of years exercising on and off and never really
getting these gains, I have finally gotten into a routine where I exercise at
least 3 times a week. I've been doing this for more than a year. Here's what
I've learned from that experience:

1\. Start small. It's much easier to talk yourself into exercising for 10
minutes 3 days a week.

2\. Exercise at home. I hated going to a gym so I never did it.

3\. Do something fun.

All of these made it much easier to exercise consistently, which was my goal.
I stopped running and weight lifting and started doing yoga, cycling, rock
climbing and boxing instead. I'm not ripped or anything but I have plenty of
functional strength and more energy and happiness than I've ever felt before.
I'd say yoga and biking give me the most long-lasting pleasure, whereas rock
climbing and boxing give me a quick intense flood when I'm done with them.
It's really great feeling like this...most days I feel ready to do something
crazy and fun like bike to wine country for wine tasting, or spend time in a
wood shop, or go to another country on a whim. Last year I felt like I peaked
at going out to dinner with friends a couple times a week (and I barely had
energy for that). I also don't miss the mid-afternoon lazy slump or the weeks
where I'd feel like my thinking was foggy and there was no way to clear it.

~~~
stdbrouw
Agree on all points, though I think there's something to be said for 10
minutes 7 days a week – routine is really important. But having a yoga mat,
balance ball and some weights at home really helps on rainy days, and making
sure you enjoy your workouts rather than dreading them sounds so obvious, but
it feels like most of us have been indoctrinated with the idea it's something
we have to suffer through.

------
Scene_Cast2
The one thing that makes a significant change for me is sleeping well. For me
to get a good night's sleep, though, I need to exercise during the day, dim
the lights at night, and to keep a consistent time of going to bed. The
biggest part of exercise = happy, for me, is the fact that I sleep well
afterwards.

------
mbesto
A year and a half ago I started doing triathlons and moved all the way up to
doing a full Ironman this year. Due to the amount of training involved it's an
awesome motivator to get you in shape and control your daily plan. Highly
recommend it (even if just doing sprint/olympic/half distance) to anyone
looking for a structured approach to staying healthy.

I also think it's a great way for entrepreneurs to exercise their minds. The
full Ironman is extremely long and takes long term determination. It's not
something you can simply hack together (as some people do by minimal training
and walking 6-hour marathons). So in a way it allows me to go through a long
term process of building up my body (i.e. a company) and make tweaks along the
way to improve the performance. I can't tell you how many times I've failed
along the way and get better as a result.

Although there is no real way to quantify this, I would say my ability to
focus at work as drastically increased. I much more confident and happy as a
result.

</infomercial>

Curious - anyone else on HN do triathlons?

~~~
tryitnow
I don't do triathlons because of the time commitment involved. I'm training
for a marathon and that's a big enough commitment.

I still think the best way to learn to be an entrepreneur is to be an
entrepreneur.

If you enjoy a specific sport or activity, enjoy it for it's own merits.
Rarely do things like marathons or Ironman or sports make sense just as ways
to keep in shape - unless that's the only thing that will motivate you.

So what I am saying is that sports are great on their own, no need to justify
them by assuming they "build character" in other parts of your life.

My guess is that success-oriented people do triathlons, not that triathlons
produce success-oriented people.

~~~
dlo
Triathlon training really isn't just tacking together the training you would
do for all three sports; this would be impossible. Instead, it is doing the
same amount of training as you would do if you were doing one of the three
sports exclusively. But in the same amount of training, you are training to
perform three sports rather than one.

This necessarily means that a triathlete is not performing to his/her ability
in any single sport. For example, a good time for the marathon portion of an
Ironman is 2:40-2:50, but a competitive marathon time is 2:05 or faster. Just
to add additional perspective, a good marathon time for an amateur runner is
2:30, faster than what a topnotch triathlete would be expected to pull off.

~~~
twoodfin
> Just to add additional perspective, a good marathon time for an amateur
> runner is 2:30...

That's not a good time for an amateur, it's an insanely good time for an
amateur. The world record is currently 2:03:38. A 2:30 would have put you in
22nd place (out of 26,000!) in this year's Boston Marathon.

~~~
dlo
2:30 is an eternity away from 2:03:38.

I am not thinking of dabblers; many people will do marathons after having
barely trained. The goal for these people is just to finish.

I think 2:30 is achievable for a healthy, moderately talented man who is not
merely dabbling: someone who is training correctly and has put in a few years
of sustained, injury-free effort.

2:30 is still very much an amateur time. For example, I think that even though
2:15 or faster is professional-caliber it is still nowhere near being
competitive.

~~~
twoodfin
Of course it's an amateur time: You're not going to win any serious marathons
running a 2:30, and if you have no chance to win, you can't really be
described as a "professional". But c'mon, 2:30 is an _amazing_ time for an
amateur. Obviously it's "achievable", since maybe a dozen "amateur" runners
managed it in Boston this year, but it's well beyond "good", as you initially
described it. It's well into the top 1% of amateur marathon runners.

~~~
mbesto
This whole argument is slightly tangental, but I figured I needed to chime in
;) A 2:30 is a ridiculous time for an amateur. It'll easy put you in the top
0.5% of amateurs in the world. To put in this in perspective... a 2:30
marathon pace puts you at doing roughly 17m30s 5km's, 8 times in a row!

~~~
dlo
Haha, yes, I agree. 2:30 would probably be run at the pinnacle of one's
amateur career -- a personal best rather than a typical time.

I do want to point out somewhat pedantically that it takes being in better-
than-2:30 shape to run 2:30 on the Boston course, a notoriously slow course.
There are runners who ran more slowly than 2:30 in Boston when they could have
run 2:30 elsewhere.

------
krrrh
The book Spark by John Ratey is a decent read for anyone who wants to go more
in-depth on this topic. The big idea that Ratey tries to get across is a
reframing of exercise as something that is essential to mental health, with
positive physical side-effects. There's been a lot of work recently tying
exercise to increased neuroplatisity that's covered as well.

~~~
tryitnow
I like this reframing. I've used it as my primary motivator for engaging in
aerobic exercise.

I used to struggle to jog a mile at a slow pace, now I'm training for a
marathon.

~~~
JimboOmega
I used to exercise to get better, and as for me, the ability I seem able to
improve physically (as far as cardio endurance goes) hrough training is very
limited. I saw some studies a few years ago that indicated I wasn't the only
one, and about 10% of people in a well controlled study saw very limited
improvement through training.

However, the mental benefits are key. So the reframing matters to me. If the
purpose of cardiovascular exercise was just to run a marathon, it'd be a
waste.

------
dfc
Recently on HN:

"Exercise Does Not Make You Less Depressed (bmj.com)"
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4446400>

------
dschiptsov
This is, so to speak, micro-level. There is also macro-level.

Exercises produces self-confidence, alters self-image and lifts self-esteem.
This results in more realistic self-image (less self-delusion and reality
distortion) which, in turn, decreases the pain (emotional weariness) caused by
cognitive dissonance (when facing reality). This makes you happy.

Go ahead, and tell us where the one ends and the other begins..)

------
ams6110
While I don't deny that exercise helps some people feel better, this has got
to quite variable from individual to individual. For example exercise doesn't
make me happy or energized, it just makes me tired.

~~~
steve-howard
Me too. Some people report that exercise makes them feel smarter; after I work
out I can sometimes barely form sentences (and I'm not doing anything extreme,
either). There's a minute chance that it helps my overall mental health at
other times, but I don't really have a way to measure that.

------
INTPenis
According to another study I read runner's high is caused by endocannabinoids.

<http://www.eckerd.edu/academics/biology/faculty/gerdeman.php>

Edit: Oops wrong link:
[http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/05/120510-runne...](http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/05/120510-runners-
high-evolution-people-dogs-science/)

------
darkstalker
I don't remember ever feeling "hapiness" after doing exercise. All that's left
after it it's the overwhelming feeling of being tired.

~~~
sliverstorm
If you don't exercise regularly, I believe that's normal.

In my experience, it takes a week or three of keeping to the schedule, and
then I start noticing that I'm just really upbeat & feel great, even though
I'm sore.

------
lispm
'the brain thinks you are either fighting the enemy or fleeing from it'

probably not

------
tomjen3
Take note startups -- find a way to put this in a pill and you can make
billions of dollars.

Yeah, exercise is free but only if your time has no value.

~~~
doublerebel
My quality of life and health is much better due to regular exercise -- I
don't think I could afford to _not_ workout. It definitely has a positive
impact on my business relationships as well as my motivation, and saves me a
ton in healthcare expenses.

~~~
tomjen3
Hence the pill.

~~~
desireco42
I love your idea.

------
codegeek
science or fiction. Whenever I work out, I feel great. period.

------
klsvu
interesting, and motivating, read, thanks for sharing it

