Running: It’s a Mental Game

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Running is known to be one of the best workouts for your body. It has countless cardiovascular benefits, such as lowering your risk of heart disease by almost 50%. It can also lower your resting heart rate, making your heartbeat more efficient. No matter how fast you run, running for just ten minutes a day can give you all the benefits.  

Aside from physical benefits, running can positively impact your mental health. It’s a great stress reliever and known to improve memory. Because it’s such a taxing aerobic exercise, it gets your heart rate up and causes you to sweat, which increases the size of the hippocampus (the part of the brain that deals with memory and learning). 

Despite all the great benefits, it can still be hard to motivate yourself to go do it. Whether it's a 10 minute run or 10 mile run, it’s important to be a strong mental runner. So, what does this mean? A mental runner is someone who stays engaged and remains excited to be running. It may sound crazy, but despite how physically taxing running can be, staying engaged and telling yourself you’re excited to be running can make the run a whole lot better- and empower you to run further. 

These are a few things you can do to keep motivated and become a stronger mental runner.

Smile

It may seem cheesy, but smiling during a run releases endorphins, which are a natural painkiller and help to achieve the ‘runners high’. Just simply smiling can take the pain away and allow yourself to focus on something happy.

Talk to yourself/DayDream!

Talking to yourself can be a nice distraction from the pain and exhaustion that comes with intense exercise and is known to boost your endurance. People find that when they talk to themselves, they are in their own little world, and then all of a sudden they are a mile further!

Take the pressure away

Don’t focus on running the fastest you can everytime you run. It’s great to have goals, but if you put this kind of pressure on yourself without giving yourself a chance to build up, you'll only find yourself frustrated and in pain. Simply, just get out there and run. Look around, take in the scenery. Let yourself enjoy the run at whatever pace you want, and you will be able to build up a strong running mentality and eventually distance and time!

Have goals

Give yourself a goal- to run a certain distance or amount of time. Get motivated and think about what it will feel like to accomplish this. Again, it doesn't need to be fast. Just tell yourself you will run two miles, or run for thirty minutes. Once you accomplish it, it'll feel great! And slowly but surely, it will get easier and easier. 

Whether you're a pro or first time runner, use these tips to strengthen your running mentality, and learn to love it!