Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the short Stuff. I'm Josh, and
Speaker 1: there's Chuck, and Chuck is out of his mind on
Speaker 1: endorphins right now. And this short stuff, like I said,
Speaker 1: oh man, I've been running for hours and I just
Speaker 1: like can't even feel my feet. I'm like, I'm floating, man,
Speaker 1: It's amazing. I'm not even breaking a sweat, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: I'm having such a runners high. Bro, you sound like
Speaker 1: the average marathon are like so much. I got on
Speaker 1: my barefoot running shoes. Oh man, I don't ever want
Speaker 1: to talk about that again. We talked about this runners
Speaker 1: high in some episode to such a degree. I was like,
Speaker 1: have we done it as a short stuff? Really? I
Speaker 1: think so? We must have talked about it in marathons
Speaker 1: or something like that. Yeah, I bet that was it.
Speaker 1: I believe a standalone short stuff is a great way
Speaker 1: to go with it. Yeah, But you know what I
Speaker 1: was describing is what runners will tell you they feel
Speaker 1: oftentimes when they are on what's known as a runners high,
Speaker 1: which is you light as a feather, you're floating, your
Speaker 1: pace is strong, and sometimes they might even burst out
Speaker 1: into uncontrollable tears of joy that they can't even explain. Yes,
Speaker 1: So I have you ever had a runners high? No,
Speaker 1: because I think you gotta run a long way to
Speaker 1: even if it even exists, it occurs, you know, not
Speaker 1: at mile one. So I have never had a runners high. Um.
Speaker 1: But this these emotional sobs that they mentioned I can
Speaker 1: identify with because like I hit the tread that every
Speaker 1: morning when I hit the treadmill. When I run, I
Speaker 1: very rarely run outside and I usually run about eleven am.
Speaker 1: So I end up watching the Prices right while I
Speaker 1: run a lot. And by the end of the show,
Speaker 1: when like people are winning or losing or whatever, are
Speaker 1: you crying? I crying is not the right word, but
Speaker 1: like my chest is tight, and like I'm overcome with
Speaker 1: the most of these got hitch, you know, And I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: this is clearly this has to do with running or
Speaker 1: exercising or something. But it's pretty funny that, yeah, I
Speaker 1: get it gets to me by the end of the
Speaker 1: Price is right? All right? Let me see if I
Speaker 1: can trigger you. Ready, Dent, Dent, it's too early for
Speaker 1: a break. You get a press on, brother, Okay, let's
Speaker 1: just do you take it from here. By the way,
Speaker 1: is one of the greatest theme Songs of All Time.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, iconic. I haven't seen it in I mean,
Speaker 1: I haven't really seen much of any of the Drew
Speaker 1: Carey stuff, and I can still just rattle that thing.
Speaker 1: It's fine. He's he's good, he's finally settled in. He
Speaker 1: I mean, he's not Bob Barker, but he knows he's
Speaker 1: not Bob Barker. He's not trying to be Bob Barker.
Speaker 1: He's Drew Carey and he's doing his own thing, and
Speaker 1: it's good. All right. So let's talk about flow state.
Speaker 1: This is um a concept that Hungarian American uh psychologist
Speaker 1: to insert name, go please, there's sixteen No, man, there
Speaker 1: are sixteen letters in this person's last name, and all
Speaker 1: continents five of them are vowels. So's hear his name
Speaker 1: is me hi chick, sent me hi ah, look at you,
Speaker 1: thank you, thank you. I'm sure that I my dialect
Speaker 1: was like nowhere near Russia. Um, but uh, that's pretty
Speaker 1: close from what I can tell. Yeah, just picture in
Speaker 1: your mind something spelled like this. Everyone C S, I, K,
Speaker 1: S Z E N T M I H A L
Speaker 1: Y I. That was his last name. Yeah, that's the
Speaker 1: last name. So I want to say it again. Okay, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I want to hear it again. Me Hi Chick sent
Speaker 1: me Hi. That sounds like it sounds like a sentence.
Speaker 1: It sounds like you're saying something in a different language.
Speaker 1: I am, I'm saying this guy's name, like, I appreciate
Speaker 1: the advice. Can you point me in the direction of
Speaker 1: the nearest car rental? Me Hi Chick set me I. Okay,
Speaker 1: it's right over there. Then. UM. I'm glad we're patting
Speaker 1: this out with comedy because there's not a lot to
Speaker 1: the runners high as we will learn. But flow state
Speaker 1: is what uh say it? Me Hi Chick sent me
Speaker 1: Hi came up with after interviewing athletes and musicians and
Speaker 1: artists basically about what brings them joy and basically kind
Speaker 1: of came to the conclusion that when these people are
Speaker 1: performing at peak levels, whether they're songwriting or poetry, slamming,
Speaker 1: or running marathons, that they all say that they fall into,
Speaker 1: or I guess the majority of people say they fall
Speaker 1: into this really focused to mental state that they call
Speaker 1: the flow state, where it's just like I've channeled, I'm
Speaker 1: channeling something. I'm not even working to do what I'm
Speaker 1: doing it's just coming out of me. Have you ever
Speaker 1: been in that state? I know you haven't had a
Speaker 1: Runners high, neither have I, but I've been in a
Speaker 1: flow state before of you. I feel like I've been
Speaker 1: in a flow state with writing before. I don't remember
Speaker 1: what I was doing while I was doing it, but
Speaker 1: I remember being like, oh wow, this is this is
Speaker 1: something special. And it was probably something mundane like um,
Speaker 1: digging a hole or something like that, which you know
Speaker 1: I'm known to do, but I it is a pretty
Speaker 1: neat thing, like there's it's just effortless. There's a certain
Speaker 1: amount of joy and pleasure to it. You feel a
Speaker 1: little bit high, and it's because it's my My theory
Speaker 1: is that, um, your body has stopped, your body and
Speaker 1: your mind have stopped trying to find the most efficient, um,
Speaker 1: least wasteful energy energy wise way of doing what you're doing,
Speaker 1: and now it's just doing it. So there's no there's
Speaker 1: no ever, there's no trying to figure something out, there's
Speaker 1: no wasted energy, and it's just it can be pleasurable
Speaker 1: in that sense. Right, So flow state they think might
Speaker 1: have a link to being uh, to encountering a Runners high.
Speaker 1: But here's the thing is, most athletes haven't experienced a
Speaker 1: runners high. It's not like all you gotta do is
Speaker 1: run eight or more miles and you're gonna get one.
Speaker 1: And then there's and I guess this would be a
Speaker 1: good time to break. There's a lot of debate about
Speaker 1: if a runners is even real to begin with, scientifically speaking,
Speaker 1: is it real? We'll find out right after these messages
Speaker 1: from our sponsor, Chuck. Is it real? Well, first, we
Speaker 1: should just say that the whole idea of this came
Speaker 1: around in the seventies when the big running boom really
Speaker 1: kicked off off. Yeah, exactly, and the doctor started looking
Speaker 1: into it a little bit, and researchers they're like, is
Speaker 1: this even a thing? Can we explain this physiologically? And
Speaker 1: they they kind of landed on initially endorphins, which are
Speaker 1: neurotransmitters that are sending chemical messages activating opiate receptors, and
Speaker 1: basically they can create a sort of an analgesic effect
Speaker 1: that could numb the body to pain and trigger a
Speaker 1: kind of morphine like euphoria, let's say. And they're like,
Speaker 1: all right, if you're running enough, maybe you're just The
Speaker 1: surge of endorphins is what's explaining this? I mean, and
Speaker 1: that's what it stayed for decades. Basically, Like when I
Speaker 1: first started getting into running ten years ago, I used
Speaker 1: getting into running and making air quotes. Um. I remember
Speaker 1: hearing like, oh, it's endorphins. Uh. And endorphins do like
Speaker 1: keep your muscles from making They do, UM have like
Speaker 1: the analgesic effects like you're talking about. But the big
Speaker 1: problem is is they apparently don't cross the blood brain barrier. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I guess somehow they do release opioids or they
Speaker 1: activate your opioid receptors, but I'm not sure how they
Speaker 1: do that if they can't get to your brain, or
Speaker 1: maybe there's something that gets to your brain but it's
Speaker 1: not the ones that get released by your muscles. Whatever
Speaker 1: the case, these early UM researchers physiologists who said it's
Speaker 1: endorphins just they were just making it up. No one
Speaker 1: went back and checked their work, and when they finally did,
Speaker 1: they saw that this was just bunk. Basically, it's bunk
Speaker 1: is speed reading. Yeah exactly. UM, that's a good T shirt.
Speaker 1: Um In there was a study out of Germany that
Speaker 1: basically said that running can stimulate your indo cannabinoid system,
Speaker 1: which is pretty interesting. Um, your body produces endocannabinoids. It's
Speaker 1: like you're sort of built in, um, cannabis, cannabis system.
Speaker 1: It's your body pot. Yeah, it's it's yeah. Good band name.
Speaker 1: Oh man, it's a great band name. And I don't
Speaker 1: even like my band name stuff usually, but body pot
Speaker 1: sounds great. Yeah, that's pretty good. When what kind of
Speaker 1: music is it? Though you're always not it's because it's
Speaker 1: classical but done on alright. Very interesting. That's another thing.
Speaker 1: You just created a genre. I think I might have
Speaker 1: not a good one, but I did sure. So, Um,
Speaker 1: have you ever seen that that blue grass band do
Speaker 1: a C d C thunderstruck? No, I bet it's pretty good.
Speaker 1: It's pretty awesome. I am not a big a C
Speaker 1: d C guy, but I can imagine hearing somebody do
Speaker 1: that on anything. It's pretty stirring. Like watching the end
Speaker 1: of Prices right after you've been running a few miles.
Speaker 1: Yeah that that guitar like sounds pretty cool in the banjo.
Speaker 1: So the Yeah, endocannabinoids, cannabinoids, um, they you can you know.
Speaker 1: It's it's like what pot does for you. Basically, it
Speaker 1: improves your anxiety and improves your mood. Uh, this is
Speaker 1: why some people turned to marijuana to reduce their anxiety,
Speaker 1: and this does actually pass the blood brain barrier. I
Speaker 1: don't understand that about how marijuana reduces anxiety. I know
Speaker 1: for a fact that it does, but I feel like
Speaker 1: it's a certain kind of person that marijuana has that
Speaker 1: effect on, and that does not have that effect on everybody. Sure,
Speaker 1: I mean I think there are plenty of people where
Speaker 1: marijuana very much increases their anxiety. Yes, and that is
Speaker 1: the saddest thing of all. Yeah, it's just said. It's
Speaker 1: it's called getting robbed by God himself or herself for
Speaker 1: their self. Yeah, because if it only did the one
Speaker 1: thing and reduced anxiety, it would be the wonder drug
Speaker 1: of the world. It's true. Yeah, we didn't have this
Speaker 1: conversation in the Girl Scouts episode. Yeah, that'd be bad.
Speaker 1: But like I said, unlike the endorsed and these endocannabinoids
Speaker 1: can move through that that blood brain barrier and give
Speaker 1: you that feeling of calm. So they think that might
Speaker 1: have something to do with the runner's eye. Yes, so,
Speaker 1: which makes a lot more sense. I mean endocannabin When
Speaker 1: we seemed like it's probably the case that that is
Speaker 1: what gives you some sort of euphoric feeling while you're
Speaker 1: in that flow state. But again, it's possible that the
Speaker 1: runner's high doesn't even exist, and that it's one of
Speaker 1: those things where it's like a self self fulfilling prophecy
Speaker 1: or I guess a bit of um uh placebo effect
Speaker 1: where you think it exists and you're running sometime and
Speaker 1: you think I feel kind of good and you're like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, I'm in a flow state. Check me out,
Speaker 1: I'm so high. Could be like that. It also could exist,
Speaker 1: and we just haven't really identified it fully yet. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but what I'm pretty sure is going to happen is
Speaker 1: we're gonna get get zillion emails from runners that are like,
Speaker 1: don't mock this. It is totally real. I've experienced it first,
Speaker 1: and Hey, I don't care if it is the greatest
Speaker 1: placebo effect of all time. It's still real. If it's
Speaker 1: a placebo, your body is still experiencing the effects of
Speaker 1: whatever it is, from a fake drug to running high. Um,
Speaker 1: you're still experiencing it. So it doesn't matter if it's
Speaker 1: externally objectively real or not. Doesn't matter. Uh. Well, if
Speaker 1: you want to know more about sylopsism or anything like that.
Speaker 1: Join us next time on short stuff. We don't have
Speaker 1: anything else about runners high right, chuck. We don't well,
Speaker 1: and that means everybody that short stuff is GIDIA. Stuff
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