Anna Lembke’s “Dopamine Nation” has a lot of interesting takes on the subject. One takeaway I got is that dopamine seeks a balance. Opting for pleasure seeking often ends up getting experienced as pain. An example of that is drug tolerance. Oddly, the reverse is also true: seeking pain can often lead to an experience of pleasure. The invigorated feeling after a cold shower, or how hard exercise leads to highs.
She is a great podcast guest, too. Her approach - that the people with the strongest addictions can tell us a lot about how we seek pleasure - has a lot of depth to it.
Are exercise highs real? Do all people experience them or is it a genetic niche?
I've tried a bunch of different exercise methods. Gone running, swimming, weightlifting etc and I've never experienced anything close to a high afterward. I'll be tired, sometimes I'll feel proud of breaking a personal record but there's never any physical positive sensation or euphoria to me that would resemble the "runners high" that people often refer to. I think I'd exercise much more consistently if there were any biological feedback mechanism to make me want to rather than doing it the way I do, like it's a chore.
The closest thing I can compare would get the transformation of anxiety into excitement from getting a piercing but even that's super short lasting, maybe five to fifteen minutes of shaky internal excitement followed by a quick regression to baseline.
I do a lot of running and a few times a year in my training there's a run where everything just lines up perfectly. I'll be well rested, focused, got some pretty scenery to look at, and moving fast with what feels like pretty low relative effort. Those moments definitely capture a lot of the joy of running for me, but if I was doing all my training just to chase them it probably wouldn't be worth it. A lot of the time it's in races but not always.
Separately, I usually feel pretty good after a run too. Some workouts I feel absolutely wrecked after, but most workouts, once you have a good fitness base, you feel pretty good after.
I'm not sure which of those, if either, are a 'runners high', but most runners I know have moments more like those than like an actual high.
The exercise high is subtle, it's not a high like smoking a bunch of pot or getting drunk, rather it's a pleasant feeling. The first time i really understood it was: I had been doing regular running + weights for several months. Then for the holidays I was travelling and visiting people and didn't have a chance to exercise. After a few days I just felt this building of energy that had nowhere to go - my body had become used to regular exercise. About 10 days after my last real workout and 4 days since any activity involving physical exertion my plane landed and I checked into a hotel that had a gym. I dumped my bags and went to the gym and got on a treadmill thinking "finally i can burn off some of this energy and anxiety from it".
On that run as I warmed up I felt a giant release. And I felt happy... no giddy.
And it was good. A few miles later I felt peace and then ran some more til I felt tired.
It's different than just putting some stuff in your nose and feeling good or popping a pill and seeing bright colors.
That's the most intense I ever felt it, but it was a good experience because it also helped me understand what it was, and I notice it often now - not every time I work out, but often - its there under the tired, post work-out let-down as sort of a "glow".
I never experienced a runner's high or a basketball "lock in" until I did it enough.
I had to build the endurance to go over 6 miles without stopping to experience my first runner's high.
I had to last a whole half in a basketball league to experience being in the zone.
It took me a couple years to even get the feeling, but now that I've experienced it, I can't stop doing it. I think there's a personalized threshold for everyone, but for me, it was pushing myself quite far beyond my limits.
> Are exercise highs real? Do all people experience them or is it a genetic niche?
They're real, but (probably, usually) not literal. Exercise just leaves me feeling good, all over. If you've had the feeling, you'll know what I mean.
Some people don't seem to get it at all. And some probably do experience a literal high; if the dial can be dialed all the way down, I'm sure it can go to 11 as well. It's unfortunate if you're in the first group, of course.
I don't get it very strongly myself, but I compensate by making the exercise itself enjoyable. Swimming is boring. Spend a few hours hiking across a mountain ridge -- that's anything but boring. Still tiring, but the views are worth it, and it's a great place for lunch.
I've been exercising quite regularly for decades, including a good amount of running alongside weights and other resistance and cardio. I love it, and hope I don't ever have to stop, but I've never experienced any sort of "runner's high" or big reaction to exercise, even after very hard or long workouts.
> Are exercise highs real? Do all people experience them or is it a genetic niche?
I've known many people who have experienced Runner's High. I am not one of them, despite having run probably close to 10k miles in my life. Marathons, Ragnar ultras, stuff like that.
Might be genetic, or I might be doing it wrong. FWIW, I've also never hit "The Wall".
If they are, in my experience they seem to be mediated by the endocannabinoid system and not primarily opiod release due to trauma and adrenaline.
The only times I've felt it were on the tail end of cross country meets (a 5k race pace) and it was quite nice. Kind of an electric Bliss in your whole body. Borderline arousing at the risk of oversharing lol.
I've experienced runner's high. Not regularly, but on occasion. After completing the couch to 5k(C25K)[1] program and running a 5K every other day for a couple years.
One in a while, I've have a great day, the music would kick in, and I'd get a runner's high. It feels like a sense of euphoria combined with frisson - the same sort of frisson I'll get when listening to just the right song at the right time. The crown of of my head would have an intense tingling feeling not some times when I've smoked cannabis.
It never lasted for long - maybe 3-5 mins tops, and I'd expect that it would fade quickly if I had stopped running. I don't believe it was associated with any distorted thinking that drugs are typically associated with - it's simply a powerful boost in positive mood.
From personal experience I believe the "runner's high" is very real. It didn't happen often, but sometimes 40-60 minutes in to a long run I would enter a state of flow and euphoria. It felt like I was effortlessly gliding across the ground and would last for as long as I kept running and a short time afterward.
I swear it must be a unique to the individual. I've been running for a few years now and have completed a few half marathons (still working to get to the full) and I have never once felt any sort of "high".
Runners high is definitely real. But it takes prolonged effort. For me, 1h of steady non-stop running or 3h of no-rests cycling is bare minimum. 2x that for the true high
I don’t exercise a lot but when I play tennis and I am happen to be pushing to my limits (2 hrs, no breaks almost), there is a point when I get a sudden rush of pleasure for about a minute when I get a lot of goosebumps. Afterwards, I am in such a good mood and feel like I can push for a little bit more before being totally done. I am not sure if something like this is what people refer to as exercise highs?
> Are exercise highs real? Do all people experience them or is it a genetic niche?
I think peoples descriptions of exercise highs are overblown in general. When I was training hard I'd feel pleasantly worn out afterwards and would certainly agree that I got the endorphins flowing.
People are actually different. Just because you don't experience the actual euphoria I do doesn't lead me to assume you're making it up that you don't. Those of us describing it that way aren't exaggerating.
I don’t get it for running, running makes me feel terrible, and I have a bad knee which probably contributes, it’s too painful after about 10km (6miles).
But after a good challenging bike ride I have 30 minutes to 1 hour of feeling great.
I’ve not experienced what I would call a high but after a good workout and feeling the muscle pump as they call it felt awesome. Your muscles bulge so hard it’s just a great feeling. But I never though of it as a high.
I've always suspected that mosquito venom does something along these lines, where the venom hijacks or overwhelms some pain nerves and makes them emit pleasure sensations instead so vigorous scratching of the skin feels unreasonably good instead of uncomfortable and painful
Yeah, this one was the one that made me buy her book. Huberman is a little much for me, but he does a great interview with her. He leaves a huge topic out -- wanted to examine his own workaholism -- but she's terrific.
The podcast of Joe Rogan, episode #1708. Interesting interview, he finds some holes in her theory that she is not able to answer or can't explain. I was very excited with the book before listening, but after it I was kind of disappointed with the book.
She is a great podcast guest, too. Her approach - that the people with the strongest addictions can tell us a lot about how we seek pleasure - has a lot of depth to it.