3 Ways Runners Engage with their "Deep Strangeness"

“To engage in a sustained way with the deep strangeness 

that is the human mind.” - Kathryn Schulz

1. “Terra firma” - Before I retired, most of my thoughts while running were, what I call, “Terra firma” (solid earth in Latin) or practical, focused thinking. This kind of thinking had and still has a direct impact on my earth-bound, everyday activities. These are not daydreams, these are solid, focused thoughts which will guide my actions after my run is complete. For example, while I was working on my Masters’ Degrees, I would mentally plan and organize papers and research projects while running. I also figured out scheduling conflicts, brainstormed programming ideas, and created solutions to a variety of work problems during my morning runs. 

 

Since retiring, the frequency of my “Terra firma” thoughts has decreased but I still plan, problem solve, and create while running. In fact, the idea for this blog post came to me during a run and I “edited” it on subsequent runs. So why is it that some of my best thinking happens during a run?

Science says... Obviously, during exercise blood pressure and flow increase, sending more energy and oxygen to muscles and organs – including the brain. This means brain performance improves.
“Another explanation for why working up a sweat enhances our mental capacity is that the hippocampus, a part of the brain critical for learning and memory, is highly active during exercise. When the neurons in this structure rev up, research shows that our cognitive function improves … Other recent work indicates that aerobic exercise can actually reverse hippocampal shrinkage, which occurs naturally with age, and consequently boost memory in older adults. Yet another study found that students who exercise perform better on tests than their less athletic peers.”1

🌎 With “Terra firma” thinking, it’s all about actively focusing your thoughts on a particular topic that you will deal with after running.

2. Mindfulness – This second type of thinking is about connecting to your body. According to Chevy Rough, a mindfulness and performance coach, “It’s purely about being mentally connected within your movement and not being distracted,”2

This type of thinking is most prevalent for me during long runs or races. Often people assume that I try to avoid thinking about how running feels. Instead, if I am running mindfully, I stay in the moment, notice my environs and my physical sensations. I monitor myself:

• My breath – What does my breath tell me about my body? Is it comfortable? Am I mouth breathing?  
• My rhythm – Speed up or slow down in response to my breath. 
• My eyes – What am I looking at? Is my gaze relaxed, or are my eyes locked on the ground? Lift my eyes and look toward the periphery. 

In one study, researchers gave runners who were training for a half or full marathon recording equipment and asked them to “think aloud” their thoughts as they ran. “Mostly, their thoughts focused on the here and now, things like their pace or their surroundings. But they also spent a lot of time thinking about how much everything hurt: ‘My hips are a little tight. I’m stiff, my feet, my ankles, just killing me this morning.’ ‘Hill, you’re a bitch … it’s long and hot — God damn it, mother eff-er.’ ‘That sucked, but it’s going to be an awesome run on the way back.’”3 (sounds familiar!😏)

🏃  With mindful thinking, it’s is all about focusing on what is happening 

here, now, while you are running. 

 

While mindfulness is all the rage now it is important to realize that “you cannot sustain a state of mindfulness over a long period of time. You will naturally ebb and flow out of it."4  Which brings me to ...

3. “Cloud” – This type of “thinking” happens when there are no intellectual issues to be dealt with and everything is working physically. I can’t really say I’m am “thinking,” since I am blissfully free from conscious control.

For me, “cloud” thinking usually happens when I’m doing something routine and unambitious – like my daily morning run. My mind wanders, I get lost in random thoughts, and contemplate things that may or may not have any practical benefit. Sometimes I don’t even remember what I was thinking about! This is my favorite way to engage with my “deep strangeness.”

I am not alone. Other people are drawn to “cloud” thinking and willing to invest nearly 50% of their waking hours engaged in it. Why? “For the individual, mind wandering offers the possibility of very real, personal reward, some immediate, some more distant. These rewards include self-awareness, creative incubation, improvisation and evaluation, memory consolidation, autobiographical planning, goal driven thought, future planning, retrieval of deeply personal memories, reflective consideration of the meaning of events and experiences, simulating the perspective of another person, evaluating the implications of self and others’ emotional reactions, moral reasoning, and reflective compassion.”5

🌥  With “cloud” thinking, it’s all about thoughts simply

floating in and out of consciousness.

Running is my means, not just for fitness and health, but mental rejuvenation, problem solving, and brain stimulation. My mind expands, swerves, and wanders as the miles unfurl...  

1. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-do-you-think-better-after-walk-exercise/
2. https://www.runnersworld.com/training/a22160937/mindfulness-in-running/
3. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1612197X.2015.1069877?journalCode=rijs20
4. https://www.thecut.com/2015/08/surprising-power-of-spacing-out.html
5. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00626/full

"Seeing Things" or Seeing Things?

“I am having a hallucination now, I don't need drugs for that.” ― Thomas Pynchon

Hallucinations are more common than people realize.[1] Many of us have hypnagogic hallucinations — seeing geometric patterns or scenes– that appear as we are wait to fall asleep. These types of patterns or scenes may be faint, or they may be very ornate, rapidly changing and intensely colored.

At the other end of the sleep cycle are hypnopompic hallucinations. These, I think, are freaky. Hypnopompic hallucinations can be seen with open eyes, upon first waking. The most common hypnopompic hallucinations include an amplification of colors or you might hear someone calling your name. Some hypnopompic hallucinations can also be terrifying like seeing a giant spider or a dark humanoid shadow looming over you.

If you have experienced sleep cycle hallucinations, you are not going insane nor are you developing dementia. The vast majority of hypnagogic and hypnopompic hallucinations are benign. They are perfectly normal. Most of us have experienced them from time to time during the sleep process or while suffering a high fever.

While hallucinations during the sleep cycle are common, experiencing hallucinations during the waking hours are not.  Generally speaking, experiencing hallucinations while awake may be due to physical or mental illness. An exception to this is the hallucination experienced by ultra-runners. It is well known that ultra-runners experience hallucinations.[2] Thirty percent of Badwater Ultramarathon runners said that they’d hallucinated – seeing giant beetles, a ship cruise by, mutant mice, etc. - at some point while running during the 135 mile race. Run 50 or 100+ miles, and some really weird things can happen to your mind and body!

I am not an ultra-runner, just a regular, ordinary “recreational” runner.  The closest I come to hallucinating while running is stumbling across bizarre things mid-stride. All along the streets, trails, and sidewalks are weird and out-of-place things that make me wonder if I AM hallucinating!  Everywhere I run, I see things that shouldn’t be there.

On residential sidewalks: men’s underwear; a hunting knife; head rest from a car and a HUGE, dead rat in the driveway of a mansion.

On a divided four-lane bridge: pink, satin pillow sham; an unopened bottle of Bud Light; lottery tickets; and a half-used bar of soap.

On trails: a shower cap; a wrench; an unopened loaf of rye bread; and a pewter tankard all just sitting in the middle of the woods.

And everywhere on the planet: the ubiquitous single shoe – never a pair, always one, lone shoe.

... a coat, on a hanger, suspended with fishing line slung over a tree limb and tied to the fence. This took some effort!  It has been like this for a month, rain or shine!

... a sofa on the beach ... this took some effort, too!

... headless sea creature ... trying not to imagine the effort it took ... creepy

While my sleep cycle provides me with plenty of opportunities to “see things” through hypnagogic and hypnopompic hallucinations, running provides me with opportunities to see things that are strange, weird and bizarre. I have been asked many times how I keep from getting “bored” while running. Are you kidding? All I have to do is look around – I see things! 

“’It was all a hallucination of course. Otherwise nothing worth noting today' [he moves on]”― Henrik Ibsen

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/04/opinion/sunday/seeing-things-hearing-things-many-of-us-do.html

 [2] https://www.thecut.com/2015/11/weird-things-happen-in-the-minds-of-ultrarunners.html

Running with My "Lesser Angel"

 

“I’ve flipped the bird at many a driver over the years and if they flip me off then I’ll usually yell at them, ‘F you,’ or something like that.”[1] - Chris Coon, runner and “mild-mannered, low-key” Pastor at Urban Village Church in Chicago.

A few days ago, I was running on a sidewalk when a man rode his bike straight towards me. My heart was racing as I jumped out of the way. I thought, “Jerk! Haven’t you ever heard of WHEELS YIELD! I felt like punching that guy! I was definitely struggling with my “lesser angel” – anger. Fortunately, I kept running.

Most people believe that we feel anger first and then exhibit the anger in our body. However, there is an alternative hypothesis that states the reverse: my body gets angry, and then I feel angry. According to the James-Lange Theory of Emotion[2], my body perceives a particular person, action, or idea, and reacts with a quickened pulse, flushed face, trembling hands – and only then do I feel the emotion of anger.

William James, American philosopher and psychologist, was one of the developers of the James-Lange theory. According to James, if my usual physical signs and symptoms of anger are blocked, then I won’t feel the emotion of anger.

Running definitely “blocks” my symptoms of anger! I kept running after the man on the bike refused to yield. If I would have stopped, I probably would have screamed at him, which would be ineffective. I can't control him, the only thing I can remotely attempt to control in this universe is me. As I continued running, my body was “too busy” to produce the physiological reactions of anger. It was totally absorbed by the physical effort of running – steady pace, calm breath, constant effort, and copious sweat.

As I continued running, anger gave way to calm. James believed that to be calm, we should act calm. In his pragmatic approach, we deal with our “lesser angels” by substituting a positive emotion for a negative one. He said, “To wrestle with a bad feeling only pins our attention on it, and keeps it still fastened in the mind; whereas if we act as if from some better feeling, the old bad feeling soon folds its tent and steals away.” In other words, if you act calm, look calm, and speak calmly - you will feel calm. You can substitute a “lesser angel” with a “better angel.” 

“We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection… when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.” – Abraham Lincoln

William Seward, Lincoln’s Secretary of State, had originally suggested that Lincoln close his First Inaugural Address[3] by calling upon the “the guardian angel of the nation.” But Lincoln scratched out Steward’s suggestion and replaced it in his own handwriting with a phrase saying that what the nation needed would not come from outside us, as in an angel guarding us from above, but instead from within us – something “better” in the “nature” of both northerners and southerners.

We can move away from our “lesser angels” and towards our “better angels.” Indeed, turning inward and being aware of how our bodies react to a person, object, or idea is the first step towards understanding our emotions. From that awareness, we can act - exchange a negative emotion with a positive one - substitute feelings that destroy with those that create - replace our view of the world from Us vs. Them to We the People.   Running isn't the only way to do this, any physical exercise can be as beneficial. When our bodies are focused on movement, are minds are free to turn inward, towards our "better angels." 

[1] https://www.runnersworld.com/health-injuries/a20847875/the-rise-of-run-rage/
[2] James, W., & Richardson, R. D. (2010). The Heart of William James (1st Edition). Harvard University Press.
[3] https://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/lincoln1.asp

Snap! Crackle! Pop!

 

“Good Lord, I sound like a bowl of Rice Krispies!” I thought as I tiptoed down the hallway. It’s 5 am and I’m trying to be as quiet as possible. But my joints broadcast almost every move I make. Being 60+ may increase the frequency of snaps, crackles and pops, but joint noises are common at any age – even young yoga students have creaky joints, I have heard them!

“The bottom line is joints make noise,” says Dr. Kim Stearns, an orthopedic surgeon. Doctors call our noisy joints crepitus. Many people dislike the sound of crepitus but even healthy joints can make noises and, while embarrassing, it is no reason to avoid healthy, physical activities.

*NOTE: Crepitus is painless. However, if there is pain, swelling, and limited range of motion, or a history of injury associated with your joint noises, you should seek advice from your doctor.

For me, crepitus is most common in the morning. After all I have been lying in bed for hours.  So before I transition from sleep to running, I want to be sure to warm up my joints.

"Warming up" means getting synovial fluid flowing. Synovial fluid is a viscous fluid found in the cavities of joints. With its egg white–like consistency, synovial fluid’s main job is to reduce friction between the articular cartilages of joints during movement. About 80 percent of our cartilage's volume is synovial fluid, thus it plays an essential role in lubricating joints and preventing injury. 

“We say motion is lotion – the more you move, the more your body lubricates itself,” Dr. Stearns says. “When you’ve been sitting or lying around, fluid in the joints doesn’t move. The more active you are, the more your joints lubricate themselves.” [1]

- What every non-runner has said to me, for the past 40 years!

No one wants to “ruin” their knees! My joints may snap, crackle, and pop occasionally, but they are still healthy. Recent studies have documented the benefits of running for joint health. [2]

"For decades, people have thought of physical activity as injurious to joints. However, a couple of years ago, a handful of studies found the opposite, with the risk of osteoarthritis going down the more active you are. Our results show that activity is the driving force behind maintaining joint lubrication."[3]

"Warming up" is essential for healthy joints! So, whether you are a runner or not, your joints will benefit from activity and movement. Beginning each day with a “Synovial Flow” will ensure you get the synovial fluid flowing and lubricating your joints. This may lessen your snaps, crackles, and pops and protect your joints.

"Synovial Flow"

Dasha Chalana (Churnings) – Standing Joint Series: Emphasizing slow, lubricating action to stimulate synovial fluid.

Ankle rotations -Bend knee with foot behind you, rest tiptoes on ground, slow & gentle rotations: 8 rotations then switch directions. Repeat with other foot. 

Knee/ankle circles - Bring your feet together and bend your knees, placing your hands above the kneecaps. Lengthen your torso as you lean forward, making small circles with the knees. Find a comfortable range of motion. Then reverse direction, 8 rotations each direction.

Hip Circles – Feet slightly wider than hip distance apart. Inhale as you move your hips forward; exhale as they swing behind. Then reverse direction, 8 rotations each direction.

Snake - Knees slightly bent, arms relaxing at sides, exhale, chin to chest & make a dome of the spine; inhale, lift chin, slowly roll to stand; wave-like movements.  Repeat for a total of 8 “snake” movements.

Wrist circles -Bend elbows; interlace fingers; allow forearms and elbows to meet in front of heart; rotate wrists. 8 rotations then reverse direction, 8 rotations.

Shoulder rolls- Lift shoulders and gently roll backward 8 times then forward 8 times.

Neck circles -Slow and gentle! Draw circles with the tip of your nose. 8 rotations then reverse direction, 8 rotations.

Standing Six Moves of the Spine – Here you take the spine through its six main movements: Flexion, Extension, Lateral flexion right and left, and Rotation right and left

Forward Fold Flow – Stretches the ankles, calves, hamstrings and lower back.  You need not do the entire progressive flow, Rag Doll is sufficient; only do those poses that feel good for you on this day, at this time. Move with care and compassion.

**To come out of these poses, bring your hands to your hips; keep the micro-bend in your knees and come up to standing with a flat back—engaging your core to support your lower back.**

After I complete my Synovial Flow, I walk from my house to the school crossing (.15 miles to be exact) . Then, my transition from sleep complete, I run.

Remember “motion is lotion.” 

[1] https://health.clevelandclinic.org/snap-crackle-pop-need-know-joint-noises/
[2] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27699484/ and https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31650307/
[3] https://www.insidescience.org/news/how-does-physical-activity-preserve-lubricated-joints