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We all know how running boosts our mood. If you go for a run, chances are you’ll feel better when you’re done. But research suggests that running may deliver benefits to the brain that extend far beyond that post-run high.
Running, it turns out, may help thwart and treat neurological disease.
Picture your circulatory system as a river. Channels of blood flow all around your body, bringing refreshing oxygen and nutrients to your organs, your limbs, and your brain. But you can modulate how fast the river flows, in a sense. The more you move—such as through running—the faster the river rushes. The faster the river rushes, the more sediment is washed away.
Sediment, in this metaphor, equates to harmful plaques that can build up on your blood vessels, says cerebrovascular researcher Rong Zhang, PhD, the director of the Cerebrovascular Laboratory within the Institute of Exercise and Environmental Medicine at the University of Texas Southwestern.
Zhang’s research focuses on how treating hypertension affects brain function, and his work helping scientists understand how cardiovascular exercise affects cognition and protects against neurodegenerative disorders.
Cognition is a catch-all term encompassing the process of thinking, experiencing, and sensing. This, of course, takes place within the brain, an enigma of an organ incapable of fully understanding itself just yet. We have the brain to thank for initiating our morning runs, and as it turns out, we have our morning runs to thank for improving our brain function (i.e. cognition).
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Brain Basics
Before we jump into the brain-boosting benefits of running, a brief primer on the brain. The brain is comprised of three main sections: the forebrain (cerebrum, cortex, and thalamus), midbrain, and hindbrain (cerebellum and brainstem). The brain is made up internally of gray matter—neuronal cell bodies and finger-like dendrites that communicate with neurons nearby—and white matter—the long axons of neurons that communicate with distant regions of the brain and the spinal cord.
The brain controls your movement by sending signals down the spinal cord to the network of nerves that branch off from there. The brain and the spinal cord make up the central nervous system, while those other tendrils of nerves are the peripheral nervous system.
Why is all this important to know? Because structure and function are closely tied. If a structure breaks down or degrades, you start to see cognitive decline.
Cardiovascular Connection
“What is good for your heart is good for your brain,” says Zhang, explaining that the two systems are inescapably linked.
The cardiovascular system is heavily influenced by the nervous system. Remember, the function of the heart is to pump oxygenated blood throughout the body and deoxygenated blood to the lungs. The autonomic nervous system (functioning in the spinal cord, brain stem, and hypothalamus) keeps us in a state of homeostasis, regulating heart rate, blood pressure, respiration, body temperature, and sweat. When we run, we really put it to work.
On the flip side, glucose and oxygen delivered to the brain through the cardiovascular system keep the brain functioning. When blood flow to the brain is restricted, a stroke can occur.
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How Running Benefits the Brain
The brain is metabolically very hungry, says Kim Hellemans, PhD, assistant professor of neuroscience at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. Therefore, we benefit cognitively from the additional uptake of blood when we get our heart pumping.
That’s why a walk around the block or lunchtime run can perk you up from a midday energy slump, Hellemans says. “You’re going to boost your attention, because your brain is needing all that energy and glucose to function normally,” she says.
She adds that one of the main physiologic outcomes of running is an increase in neurogenesis, which is the birth of new cells. Exercise positively affects brain-derived neurotrophic factors (BDNF), a protein that helps neurons grow and survive and plays a part in our long-term memory. This is just one example of how exercise, when introduced early enough, can serve as a primary prevention for diseases affecting the brain.
Another way exercise can help prevent disease in the brain is by keeping the heart healthy. Take hypertension, or high blood pressure, for example. Hypertension can damage brain blood vessels and reduce blood flow to the brain. But when your heart is made stronger through exercise, it can pump blood through the body with less force on the arteries.
Exercise might even be used to diminish symptoms or slow the progression of certain diseases.
Take Alzheimer’s, a neurodegenerative disease believed to be caused by an abnormal buildup of proteins like amyloids which form plaques on the brain cells or the protein tau which tangle within the brain cells. Studies in mice have found that introducing exercise decreased the accumulation of additional plaque, possibly slowing cognitive decline.
Setting aside neurodegenerative diseases, the brain naturally declines with age. Our gray matter physically shrinks. Neural communication becomes less effective. Blood flow decreases. Inflammation increases. However, studies have shown that masters athletes may have better brain structures than their non-exercising peers. Zhang points to a cross-sectional study finding that physical activity slowed down gray matter degradation.
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Running is Brain and Mood-Boosting
Exercise modulates brain chemicals, that much is clear, Zhang says. Anecdotally, those of us who run can tell that it makes us feel better.
Hellemans runs for her mental health. “The physical health benefits are a happy bonus,” she says. As a neuroscientist, running is tangential to her research. In studying the mental health of university students, she has found that exercise is a stress coping mechanism positively associated with well being and academic outcomes.
Neurogenesis, as Hellemans mentioned, is a product of running, which very much affects mood. Drugs that treat depression, for example, promote neurogenesis, and factors that inhibit neurogenesis are often linked with factors that trigger mental illness.
Studies in mice have found that dopamine, noradrenaline, and serotonin are modulated by exercise. Some of these neurotransmitters you may know. Dopamine has long been known as the “feel-good” hormone, while serotonin helps to stabilize your mood, among other benefits. Noradrenaline, one of the lesser known hormones, helps keep you alert and is often pinpointed as the root of the fight or flight response.
Running is a stressor itself, right? It’s no picnic. And your brain doesn’t immediately differentiate between running for survival or running for pleasure. Running causes adrenaline to kick in, followed by endocannabinoids to bring you back down to a relaxed state. “It’s initially activated to kind of help alert and then also to calm the organism down. It’s kind of like a seesaw,” Hellemans says. “Cognitively, you’re doing it for fun, but it’s a very different stress appraisal system.” Over time, you’re also improving future stress regulation.
She adds that people who exercise regularly are also more resilient in the face of future stressors because they are activating those same circuits that are implicated in the stress response. The benefits of running, cognitively and psychologically, are cumulative. The more you habituate to running, the more you’ll see these benefits long-term.
It would be foolish to think that running is going to protect you to no end. Every person has their own unique set of factors that ultimately play into their health outcomes: genetics, upbringing, habits, socioeconomic circumstances, environments. It’s the internal and external coming together.
“Life is so complicated,” Zhang says. “But I think it’s still good to improve your resilience to external challenges.” Running and resilience go hand in hand. Physically, sure. But mentally, too. A run at the end of a long day feels an awful lot like wading in a river and letting your worries wash away.
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