A day after my 35th birthday this spring, I ran my first half-marathon. I expected it to be a grueling physical challenge, and it was. What I didn’t expect was this: Somewhere around mile 10, while listening to a favorite song on my iPod, I experienced a fantastic, expanding sense of joy. I could not restrain myself from reaching my arms up, palms to the sun, to celebrate the sheer pleasure of being alive and propelling myself forward through the humid morning air.
There is a quick diagnosis for my condition: runner’s high, a state that the latest research shows is related to the release of endorphins, the body’s natural opiate. While both runners and researchers have compared the experience of runner’s high to doing street drugs, my own moment in the sun felt more like feelings I have had while praying or meditating.
Is the runner’s high, then, a religious experience? I asked Andrew Newberg, MD, a University of Pennsylvania professor who has researched what the brain looks like during religious experiences.
“There is no absolutely clear definition of what constitutes a religious or spiritual experience,” Dr. Newberg tells me. In an online survey with 1,500 respondents, Dr. Newberg and his colleagues asked people to describe spiritual experiences they have had.
“Their answers are all over the place. Some people have spiritual experiences associated with religion itself, but other people mentioned things like exercise, music, or art,” says Dr. Newberg, co-author of Why We Believe What We Believe: Uncovering Our Biological Need for Meaning, Spirituality and Truth. What their descriptions do have in common is “the feeling of being connected to what you feel is sacred: God or the universe or absolute reality,” he says. “It’s a state of deep and emotional meaning, and generally, it’s very positive.”
So I’m not alone: Many of us experience profound spiritual moments while doing ostensibly nonreligious things. But according to Dr. Newberg, activities such as running may have a special power to evoke that state.
Based on his research, Dr. Newberg believes that the autonomic nervous system, which helps us both rev up and calm down as needed, plays a crucial role in spiritual and religious experiences.
“When you are engaged in frenetic activity, like running, your body is being driven by the arousal arm of the autonomic nervous system,” says Dr. Newberg. “But that experience of transcendence may come when your quiescent [or quiet] state suddenly reasserts itself.”
I experienced my moment of transcendence near the end of the race, after close to two hours of running, when I had the strange sensation of being carried forward without conscious thought, as if my legs were running on autopilot.
Other runners, much more accomplished ones, have written of similar feelings. Ultradistance runner Yiannas Kouros wrote back in 1990 about the experience of nearly running himself to death and then having the amazing sensation of his mind taking over his failing body: “It is as if I see my body in front of me; my mind commands and my body follows…It is a very beautiful feeling and the only time I experience my personality separate from my body.”
“This is exactly what people describe experiencing in meditation or prayer, this sense of peak experience at moments of surrender,” says Dr. Newberg, noting that this may be related to a decrease in activity in the brain’s frontal lobes. Dr. Newberg’s brain-imaging studies of Tibetan monks in meditation, Franciscan nuns in prayer, and Pentecostal Christians speaking in tongues showed decreases in activity in parts of the brain that orient and direct us in the world.
“When the part of your brain that normally makes you feel like you’re in control suddenly steps down, then automatic processes take over,” Dr. Newberg says, adding that it allows for moments of transcendence.
When I see runners while I’m driving, I often have an overwhelming urge to slip on my shoes and join them. I understand now where that desire comes from. It’s not just about losing weight or staying fit or being outside, though I like all those side effects. I run because I am chasing the chance to feel that joy.
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(PHOTO: CORBIS)
Comments (3)
Nice piece! It’s an interesting comparison, because like religious or spiritual experiences, the runner’s high is elusive. It’s not in every run; you can’t necessarily bring it on by choice. It is, however, such a wonderful feeling that you are willing to slog through so much unpleasantness in the hopes of attaining it again. Prayer often feels the same way. Especially ritualized prayer in which you may often not experience a deep connection to God. It is the chance experiences that keep you doing the ritual.
What a great post! There is a great connection between faith and fitness. I have experienced incredible, exhilarating moments in my pursuit of both faith and fitness. There is a community of us committed to “pursuing genuine faith and lifelong fitness” at http://FaithFirstFitness.com!
Thought you would like this!