Stuff You Should Know - Short Stuff: Runner's High

Episode Date: June 2, 2021

Listen in to today's short stuff to learn if a runner's high is really a thing. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. And a different hot sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh and there's Chuck and Chuck is out of his mind

on endorphins right now. And this is short stuff, like I said. Oh man, I've been running for hours and I just like can't even feel my feet. I'm like, I'm floating, man. It's amazing. I'm not even breaking a sweat. And I'm like, I'm having such a runner's high, bro. You sound like the average marathoner like so much. I got on my barefoot running shoes. Oh man. I don't ever want to talk about that again. We talked about this runner's high in some episode to such a degree. I was like, have we done it as a short stuff? Oh, really? I think so. We must have talked about it in marathons or something like that. Yeah, I bet that was it. I believe a standalone short stuff is a great way to go with it. Yeah, but you know, what I was describing is what runners will tell you

they feel oftentimes when they are on what's known as a runner's high, which is you're light as a feather, you're floating, your pace is strong. And sometimes they might even burst out into uncontrollable tears of joy that they can't even explain. Yes. So have you ever had a runner's high? No, because I think you got to run like a long way to even if it even existed occurs, you know, not at mile one. So I have never had a runner's high, but these emotional sobs that they mentioned I can identify with because like I hit the treadmill every morning. When I hit the treadmill, when I run, I very rarely run outside and I usually run about 11 a.m. So I end up watching the prices right while I run a lot. Amazing. And by the end of the show, when like people

are winning or losing or whatever. Are you crying? Crying is not the right word, but like my chest is tight and like I'm overcome with emotions like a hitch. Amazing. And I'm like, well, this is clearly this has to do with running or exercising or something, but it's pretty funny that yeah, it gets to me by the end of the price is right. All right, let me see if I can trigger you. Ready? Okay. Oh, my God. Stop. It's too early for a break. You got to press on, brother. Okay, let's just see. Do you take it

from here? That, by the way, is one of the greatest theme songs of all time. Oh, yeah. Iconic. I haven't seen it. And I mean, I haven't really seen much of any of the Drew Carey stuff and I can still just rattle that thing off. It's fine. He's good. He's finally settled in. I mean, he's not Bob Barker, but he knows he's not Bob Barker. He's not trying to be Bob Barker. He's Drew Carey and he's doing his own thing and it's good. All right. So let's talk about Flow State. This is a concept that Hungarian American psychologist. I'd like this one up too. Insert name. Go please. There's 16 letters. I think you should go first. No, man. There are 16 letters in this person's last name and all consonants. Five of them are vowels.

So his name is Mihai Csikszentmihi. Ah, look at you. Thank you. Thank you. I'm sure that my dialect is like nowhere near Russia, but that's pretty close from what I can tell. Yeah. Just picture in your mind something spelled like this, everyone. C-S-I-K-S-Z-E-N-T-M-I-H-A-L-Y-I. That was his last name. Yeah. That's the last name. I want to say it again. Okay. Yeah. I want to hear it again. Mihai Csikszentmihi. That sounds like, it sounds like a sentence. It sounds like you're saying something in a different language. I am. I'm saying this guy's name. Like I appreciate the advice. Can you point me in the direction of the nearest car rental? Mihai Csikszentmihi. Okay. It's right over there then. I'm glad we're padding this out with comedy because there's not

a lot to the runner's high as we will learn, but flow state is what, say it? Mihai Csikszentmihi. Came up with after interviewing athletes and musicians and artists basically about what brings them joy and basically came to the conclusion that when these people are performing at peak levels, whether they're songwriting or poetry slamming or running marathons, that they all say that they fall into, or I guess a majority of people say they fall into this really focused mental state that they call the flow state, where it's just like I'm channeling something. I'm not even working to do what I'm doing. It's just coming out of me. Have you ever been in that state? I know you haven't had a runner's high in either of I, but I've been in a flow state before of you. I feel

like I've been in a flow state with writing before. Nice. I don't remember what I was doing while I was doing it, but I remember being like, oh, wow, this is something special. It was probably something mundane like digging a hole or something like that, which I'm known to do, but it is a pretty neat thing. It's just effortless. There's a certain amount of joy and pleasure to it. You feel a little bit high and it's because my theory is that your body and your mind have stopped trying to find the most efficient, least wasteful energy-wise way of doing what you're doing and now it's just doing it. So there's no effort. There's no trying to figure something out. There's no wasted energy and it can be pleasurable in that sense. Right. So flow state they think might have a link to

encountering a runner's high, but here's the thing is most athletes have an experience of runner's high. It's not like all you got to do is run eight or more miles and you're going to get one and then there's, and I guess this would be a good time to break, there's a lot of debate about if a runner's high is even real to begin with, scientifically speaking. Is it real? We'll find out right after these messages from our sponsor. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough or you're at the end of the road. Okay, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass

and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. This I promise you. Oh, God. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS because I'll be there for you. Oh, man. And so my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me. Yep, we know that Michael and a different hot sexy teen crush boy band are each week to guide you through life step by step. Oh, not another one. Kids relationships life in general can get messy. You may be thinking this is the story of my life. Just stop now. If so, tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen. So we'll never ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever

you listen to podcasts. I'm Mangeh Shatikler. And to be honest, I don't believe in astrology. But from the moment I was born, it's been a part of my life in India. It's like smoking. You might not smoke, but you're going to get second hand astrology. And lately, I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell me to stop running and pay attention. Because maybe there is magic in the stars, if you're willing to look for it. So I rounded up some friends and we dove in and let me tell you, it got weird fast. Tantric curses, Major League baseball teams, canceled marriages, K-pop. But just when I thought I had to handle on this sweet and curious show about astrology, my whole world can crash down. Situation doesn't look good. There is risk to

father. And my whole view on astrology, it changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, I think your ideas are going to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive and the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Chuck, is it real? Well, first, we should just say that the whole idea of this came around in the 70s when the big running boom really kicked off. Kicked off by Forrest Gump? Yeah, exactly. And doctors started looking into it a little bit and researchers are like, is this even a thing? Can we explain this physiologically? And they kind of landed on initially endorphins, which are neurotransmitters that are sending chemical messages,

activating opiate receptors. And basically, they can create a sort of an analgesic effect that could numb the body to pain and trigger a kind of morphine like euphoria, let's say. And they're like, all right, if you're running enough, maybe you're just the surge of endorphins is what's explaining this. I mean, then that's what it stayed for decades, basically. Like, when I first started getting into running 10 years ago, I used getting into running and making air quotes. I remember hearing like, oh, it's endorphins. And endorphins do keep your muscles from making. They do have like the analgesic effects like you were talking about. But the big problem is, is they apparently don't cross the blood-brain barrier.

Yeah. So I guess somehow they do release opioids or they activate your opioid receptors, but I'm not sure how they do that if they can't get to your brain. Or maybe there's some that get to your brain, but it's not the ones that get released by your muscles. Whatever the case, these early researchers, physiologists who said it's endorphins, they were just making it up. No one went back and checked their work. And when they finally did, they saw that this is just bunk, basically, as bunk as speed reading. Yeah, exactly. Oh, that's a good t-shirt. In 2015, there was a study out of Germany that basically said that running can stimulate your endocannabinoid system, which is pretty interesting.

Your body produces endocannabinoids. It's like your sort of built-in cannabis system. It's body pot. Yeah, good band name. Oh, man, it's a great band name. And I don't even like my band name stuff usually, but body pot sounds great. Yeah, that's a pretty good one. What kind of music is it, though? You're always nailing that. Body pot is classical, but done on endolins. All right, very interesting. That's another thing. You just created a genre. I think I might have, actually. Not a good one, but I did. Sure. So have you ever seen that bluegrass band do ACDC's Thunderstruck? No, I'll bet it's pretty good. It's pretty awesome. I'm not a big ACDC guy, but I can imagine hearing somebody do that on anything is pretty

stirring, like watching the end of Price is Right after you've been running a few miles. Yeah, that guitar sounds pretty cool in the banjo. So the, yeah, endocannabinoids, cannabinoids, they can, it's like what pot does for you basically. It improves your anxiety, improves your mood. This is why some people turn to marijuana to reduce their anxiety, and this does actually pass the blood-brain barrier. I don't understand that about how marijuana reduces anxiety. I know for a fact that it does, but I feel like it's a certain kind of person that marijuana has that effect on, and that does not have that effect on everybody. Sure. I mean, I think there are plenty of people where marijuana very much

increases their anxiety. Yes, and that is the saddest thing of all. Yeah. It's just sad. It's called getting robbed by God himself or herself or theirself. Yeah, because if it only did the one thing and reduced anxiety, it would be the wonder drug of the world. Yes, it's true. Yeah. I'm glad we didn't have this conversation in the Girl Scouts episode. Yeah, that'd be bad. But like I said, unlike the endorphins, these endocannabinoids can move through that blood-brain barrier and give you that feeling of calm, so they think that might have something to do with the runner's eye. Yes, which makes a lot more sense. Endocannabinoids seem like it's probably the case that that is what gives you some sort of euphoric feeling while you're in that flow state. But again,

it's possible that the runner's eye doesn't even exist and that it's one of those things where it's like a self-fulfilling prophecy or I guess a bit of placebo effect where you think it exists and you're running some time and you think, oh, I feel kind of good and you're like, oh, my God, I'm in a flow state. Check me out. I'm so high. Could be like that. It also could exist and we just haven't really identified it fully yet. Yeah, but what I'm pretty sure is going to happen is we're going to get a gazillion emails from runners that are like, don't mock this. It is totally real. I've experienced it first hand. Hey, I don't care if it is the greatest placebo effect of all time. It's still real if it's a placebo. Your body is still experiencing the

effects of whatever it is from a fake drug to running high. You're still experiencing it, so it doesn't matter if it's externally objectively real or not. It doesn't matter. True. Well, if you want to know more about salopsism or anything like that, join us next time on Short Stuff. We don't have anything else about runners high, right, Chuck? No, we don't. Well, that means everybody that Short Stuff is giddy up. Stuff you should know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts on my heart radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.