April 3, 2024
Three mornings a week, I wake up at 5:30 a.m., put on clothes and my running shoes, walk for five minutes, then run between four to seven miles. Another night every week, I make an appearance at a local brewery for a shorter social three-mile run (and get a cheap beer after!). And, a lot of the time, when talking about what I do for fun, I mention this; a good fraction reply that they could not do this.
In America, people receive a lot of conflicting information about the body. The food pyramid that we were taught in school has since changed in favor of MyPlate; public opinion on which macronutrient to optimize for swings wildly; I’m still not sure if a glass of wine every night is supposed to be healthy or not. Depending on who you talk to, one may be healthy at any BMI or you should hop on GLP-1 agonists as soon as your BMI breaches 25. With these conflicting narratives, it is hard to determine what one can do with the body and what is out of control.
All you have is the use of your body. This was not always the case; when you were a kid, you had to learn how to crawl, walk, guide a spoon to your mouth, and talk. It will not always be the case; the infirmities of old age and disability will likely take these capabilities from you someday. The future functioning of your mind and body is not a guarantee. This flash of ability should be taken advantage of. Here are a few reasons:
When I started running for the first time in seventh grade, I hated it. I saw everyone else able to do it with such stamina and capability while I’d be struggling to make a mile. I hated every second when I hit a mile. And it was still bad when I could run two. Under a summer with record heat, running in 90+ degree weather, my first 5k was terrible. It got better. It’s easy to delude yourself into thinking that you are uniquely incapable of doing something that everyone else can.
Right now, I am twenty-three years old. The median person who is reading this article is probably somewhere in their mid-twenties; assuming a random sample of this group from the US population 21-64, one in ten readers will have a disability. Among those 65-74, 23.9% will. Older than 75? 46.1%. You will grow old. It’s nearly a coin-flip that you will be disabled one day.
Regret, I am told, builds with age. Not having used one of the capabilities which distinguishes good health seems to be a potential one. Furthermore, the body is a use-it-or-lose-it sort of deal. The longer you chose to engage with activity, the longer you will be able to maintain it.
Furthermore, you are not the only person in your life who will grow old; there are many who will encounter the difficulties of limited mobility before you do. At least in my family, it is an expectation that the able-bodied help those who use walkers, need assistance to walk, etc – your continued use of your body will allow you to provide for others longer. Help others deal with the indignities of age and you will learn what you should brace yourself for.
Being told by a doctor that exercise will help improve my mood has been one of the most frustrating repeated experiences of my life; what makes it infinitely more frustrating is that they’re absolutely correct. The second time I picked up running was in Winter 2020; my apartment had very strict COVID rules, and I felt incredibly isolated from the outside world. In combination with other factors, this was the worst that I had ever felt. Instead of walking in front of a car about it, it made sense to try a slightly less painful course of action and started running again. Much to my irritation, it made me feel much better.
First, it got me out of the house. As a practical example, in October of 2020, I walked 25 miles and went to 10 places that were not my house; in February 2021, 68 miles (for a non-COVID comparison, in October 2023, 74 miles and 40+ places). From this alone, I felt much better.
Exercise also gives you a goal to work toward; setting your sights toward the horizon is a powerful driving force when you don’t have much else going on. If you are competitive, you can already compete with yourself to beat your own personal bests (I’m still trying to get back up to a half marathon at a 10 min/mi pace and my 6:30 mile). And if you’re really competitive, you can be annoying at a running club, show up, and break a Strava record for the route (whoops!).
There’s also something biochemical going on. While personally agnostic on a chemical theory of depression/anxiety/etc., I used to have pretty bad mood swings aside from the whole COVID-mimicry of the symptoms of depression (my roommates can confirm). When I ran, I found that these were lessened. Anecdotally, there’s also some feedback loop which helps with anxiety as well.
On the more woo-hippy side, we live in a very mind-focused society, believing in mind-body dualism. This is downstream of the Greeks, among other spiritual beliefs. While we will all find out if this is true one day, it is not a helpful frame to exist within when you still are your body. More than anything else, exercise drives home a feeling of embodiment; that one may not cleave the mind and body so cleanly. When I am holding on for dear life while bouldering or barely making it to my seventh mile on a run, my mental state is inevitably strongly linked with the physical. If you have problems with embodiment or drawing a clear link to your mind and body (as I suspect a lot of people who use the internet too much are, among other traits of the people who read this), this helped me a lot.
This one is the elephant in the room; people usually do not want to admit that they do something because it improves their self-image. Though, of course, many people do think this is a factor and politely avoid the subject.
When you run, your heart beats faster; over time, your body notices this and your heart and lungs adapt accordingly. Your resting heart rate slows and you get better at breathing. This makes you not winded when you go up stairs. When you do exercises which require strength (think: rock climbing, or traditionally weight lifting), your muscle fibers tear; your body repairs them, growing back stronger to compensate for increased stress. Having more muscle (and flexibility!) changes how you carry yourself (both mentally and posture-wise), which in turn changes how people see you in a positive direction. For some reason, admitting to doing things for this reason alone is seen as a faux-pas. It should not be the only reason that one exercises – doing things for oneself is good and changing how you act to change how others think of you isn’t great. It still merits mention.
I originally thought about discussing the concept of “body fascism” here, but I’ve decided to think less about theory. Note that I intentionally didn’t talk about weight loss though – it’s an annoying topic and a sore spot for a lot of people. Exercise, provided you adjust for your needs re: joints, etc., benefits almost everyone regardless of weight and celebrating the capabilities that you have is most important.