Fix regular dates in your diary to reap the benefits of running

9:08am Wednesday 12th March 2008

Prozac or Asics? Anti-depressants or a gentle jog? Swallowing pills or sweating? You don't have to be suffering from stress to benefit from running, according to most medical practitioners.

Sport has benefits not just for the body, but particularly the mind. But you don't have to be suffering from burn-out to benefit; exercise acts in a preventative way for "healthy" people.

Many of us work for hours behind computers, which puts huge stress on the cerebral cortex, which is the bit of the brain that controls memory, attention, perceptual awareness, thought, language, and consciousness.

Running or jogging (or any other endurance sport) destresses our system and frees up positive hormones, such as DHEA (Dehydroepiandrosterone), a natural steroid, or oxytocin, which is a hormone only otherwise released during giving birth, breast-feeding and sex.

Little research has been done on the health benefits of endurance exercise, partly because it conflicts with the needs of the pharmaceutical industry to promote drug-use.

Dutch mental-health practitioner, Bram Bakker, says it'd be far more cost-effective for governments to give everyone a pair of running shoes and a year's running-club membership than throwing millions at drug remedies.

And there'd be huge savings on drugs for high blood-pressure, or reducing cholesterol, or other health problems such as overweight or obesity.

But Bakker says, "There's two ways to change behaviour: the carrot or the stick. That's why I think governments should reimburse everyone for buying running shoes." But getting people to use the shoes regularly is another matter, which Bakker recognises.

"Running books are full of training-plans and stretching diagrams. But motivation techniques are much more interesting. GPs and therapists ought to pay more attention to that", he says.

"Fix a time in your diary, and go training in a group. For generations we've locked health-care patients up in institutions. Let them get out and exercise. Go to the gym or a park."

"Apart from the direct benefits it also makes people realise that they can be in control of their own destiny. People suffering from depression often feel worthless and as if they can do nothing. But if they can go from running 100 yards to the next lamppost to running a mile round a park, they see that they've achieved something, and that gives them a fantastic kick."

Details of training clinics and organised weekly training times are given in the article on March 8 under the Bradford 10k heading.

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