Scheer 1 Kyle Scheer Professor Rury ENGL-1301-66-18 October 31, 2018 The Effects of Running on Your Life “Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must outrun the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning in Africa, a lion wakes up. It knows that it must run faster than the slowest gazelle, or it will starve. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a lion or a gazelle, when the sun comes up you’d better be running.” – Author Unknown. Running is one of those aspects of life where about 90% of people will be vehemently opposed to it, and often there’s little changing their mind. Yet for those in the 10%, they reap the great rewards that come with going on that daily jog. Running slows the effects of aging, helps people have improved sleep and feel energized, and leads to the development of the closest friendships a person could ever have. We can all get behind anything that helps us age slower. A new study from the Stanford University School of Medicine suggests that regular running can do just this. Researchers tracked 538 runners over the age of 50 for more than 20 years. The elderly runners had fewer disabilities and a longer span of active life compared to their non-running counterparts. Nineteen years into the study, 34% of those who did not run had died, whereas only 15% of runners had died. Both groups were more disabled after 21 years of aging, yet for runners, the disabilities started up to 16 years later. Both show that the runners’ bodies deteriorated slower than non-runners (Digitale). Slowing the effects of aging is a long-term effect of running, but what about a more immediate effect? Oftentimes, life will throw us a perfect storm of situations that leave us with little to no quality sleep. Luckily, running can help everyone out here. Scheer 2 A 2013 survey by the National Sleep Foundation reported that runners and people who work out on a regular basis had significantly higher sleep quality than those who didn’t. The study shows that a little bit of exercise goes a long way to improving sleep: adding just 10 minutes of physical activity helped non-exercisers report superior sleep (National Sleep Foundation). Furthermore, new research reveals that exercise will boost energy throughout the day. In this new study, researchers looked at 70 studies on exercise and fatigue, involving more than 6,800 people. Over 90% of the studies found that when people who normally did little to no exercising completed a regular exercise program, they reported improved energy levels compared to groups that didn’t exercise (Warner). I’ve even experienced this personally. On days when I don’t run, I feel terrible throughout the day and then to add on to that I don’t end up sleeping well that night. Yet, by just going for a 2-3 mile run during athletics, I feel better in my last four periods and inevitably sleep great that night as well. Although, even greater than improved sleep and energy is the relationships that running can form. I’ve been running in races outside of school and within Cross Country for a long time now, and it’s become obvious to me that running friendships are unlike any other. It doesn’t matter if two runners are meeting for the first time ever, they already have much in common due to of the running culture they both share. Whether they are meeting on a run or elsewhere, it’s easy to turn that initial bond into a lasting friendship. Additionally, if runners are on a team together, it brings them even closer because of the shared workouts. Something about running workouts that feel absolutely terrible just allows people to connect in a way that wouldn’t otherwise be possible; there is no perfect way to explain it, but awful training makes great relationships. The runners that I have become friends with will be friends of mine till the end of my life and have all truly changed my Scheer 3 life for the better. There are so many more runners out there waiting to strike up a friendship during a run. Running is clearly not an evil, destructive source of punishment that should be banned worldwide. It’s a helpful, benevolent activity for all humans. Running slows the effects of aging, helps you sleep better and feel more energized, and creates friendships that cannot be broken. So, the next time someone asks you to run with them, go for it! You might meet some new people, sleep better, and even not age as fast. Scheer 4 Works Cited Digitale, Erin. ”Running slows the aging clock, Stanford researchers find.” Stanford Medicine, 11 Aug 2008, med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2008/08/running-slows-the-aging-clockstanford-researchers-find.html. Accessed 31 Oct 2018 “National Sleep Foundation Poll Finds Exercise Key to Good Sleep.” National Sleep Foundation, 4 March 2013, www.sleepfoundation.org/media-center/national-sleep-foundation-pollfinds-exercise-key. Accessed 31 Oct 2018 Warner, Jennifer. “Exercise Fights Fatigue, Boosts Energy.” WebMD, 3 Nov 2006, www.webmd.com/diet/news/20061103/exercise-fights-fatigue-boosts-energy. Accessed 31 Oct 2018
