The current way of life requires that we take care of our body and mind in the same way, hence the importance of physical exercise and meditation, of all types of physical training, running is one of the most popular and also one of the healthiest (provided fitness allows and this is done with medical advice). On the other hand, when it comes to mental and emotional care, meditation is gaining more and more followers.
The race certainly has many advantages: it’s good for the heart and also for the mind, so it’s no wonder that the mind starts to wander when you run, whether the thoughts are related to the training itself or something very different.
- In this sense.
- A good training occurs when the mind and body acquire the same rhythm.
- While working in different spaces.
- It is at this moment that the practice of meditation finds its space and meaning.
“If you train your mind to run, everything else will be easy. “Amby Burfoot?
Meditation is a practice of focusing your attention to clear your mind and reduce anxiety, learning to concentrate can help you disconnect from the concerns that filter into your thoughts, in this sense running can be an excellent activity to free the mind and change the stress points in our body, so that this tension / strength becomes movement.
Meditation calms and brings other important benefits to those who practice it, has been shown to help reduce stress and stimulate the production of hormones that make up our level of resistance to depression, meditation, because they are related to attention, can also help us control pain and even help improve the structure of our brain, strengthening the synaptic connections that are very important to us.
There are many ways to develop a meditation and mindfulness practice, so you don’t need to put candles, burn incense or sit on a special pillow in a specific way, in fact, when you’re deeply involved in an activity, you can adopt a meditative attitude, running is one of those activities, because when it’s done right, it allows us to move.
Runners often say that running is like a balm, a way to overcome their problems, escape negative thoughts or overcome personal demons. In addition to the need for physical exercise, even physically overcoming (longer and faster), there is a need to overcome emotionally. If I can do that, I can do anything.
Running is a rhythmic and natural movement that allows energy to flow through our body and transform into movement, so instead of using this energy to ruminate negative thoughts and emotions, we spend it on an activity capable of stimulating our nervous system and endocrine. It releases the energy of negative emotions, it will be much easier to work with them.
Running stimulates meditation and the body and mind become stronger. A 2016 study published in Translational Psychiatry found that combining guided meditation with running or walking reduced symptoms of depression in 40% of participants in this research.
The key to all this is that running facilitates the concentration of attention, especially when we have been running for some time and our movements are automated and the degree of suffering becomes much more controllable Is that when we pass?Take off from the body to keep up with the body, resulting in a kind of hypnosis that comforts us inside.
The race slows down our thinking. It gives us a new perspective, a new spirit, if you have never run or practiced very little I will give you an example that you have surely lived: how many times have you had the feeling that a problem was huge at night and small. The next morning?
Why is this happening to us? Because our way of thinking is very different at every moment of the day, when we run we enter a different state of thought: we can think about problems, seek mental solutions, but with a big difference: by running we can free ourselves from anxiety. through movement.
On the other hand, if our mind does not want to work with the problem at that time, it can allow attention to flow freely and, given the multiplicity of stimuli that exist, starting with bodily sensations, our mind will calm down and even want to calm down. Fun.
Even without knowing it, running slows down the mind and gradually relieves the intense storm of thoughts caused by various concerns.
On many occasions most of us are not in the present moment, our mind goes from the past to the future and from the future to the past without stopping in the present, so we do not process much of the information captured by our senses. Our brain believes that we have limited resources and that if our mind is occupied by elements it considers most important (with the past or with the future), it will reject much of these elements that it considers less important (the present).
The main objective of any meditation practice is to help draw our attention to the present moment, understanding it as a necessary stop to continue the past-future segment. Mental concentration is the basis of all meditation practices, the objective of which is to bring us to a state of consciousness where concentration does not make us lose sight of it. Thus, with meditation, we can see the tree without losing sight of the forest where we are.
Running helps us to do just that: to be more aware of the present moment and to better tolerate the problems that arise or those that we fear will appear on the horizon, in addition, it connects us with the present, because it amplifies the channel of communication with our body, a practically perfect “machine” that we tend to ignore, except when it sends us a sign of complaint or pain.