Rat Happy
It’s one of the dirty little secrets of intense exercise. Do it, and you’ll feel happy. Rat happy, as an inner rat-like calm spreads over you. NYT’s Health section explains:
Researchers at Princeton University recently made a remarkable discovery about the brains of rats that exercise. Some of their neurons respond differently to stress than the neurons of slothful rats. Scientists have known for some time that exercise stimulates the creation of new brain cells (neurons) but not how, precisely, these neurons might be functionally different from other brain cells.
… scientists allowed one group of rats to run. Another set of rodents was not allowed to exercise. Then all of the rats swam in cold water, which they don’t like to do. Afterward, the scientists examined the animals’ brains. They found that the stress of the swimming activated neurons in all of the ’ brains. (The researchers could tell which neurons were activated because the cells expressed specific genes in response to the stress.) But the youngest brain cells in the running rats, the cells that the scientists assumed were created by running, were less likely to express the genes. They generally remained quiet. The “cells born from running,” the researchers concluded, appeared to have been “specifically buffered from exposure to a stressful experience.” The rats had created, through running, a brain that seemed biochemically, molecularly, calm.
For years, both in popular imagination and in scientific circles, it has been a given that exercise enhances mood. But how exercise, a physiological activity, might directly affect mood and anxiety — psychological states — was unclear. Now, thanks in no small part to improved research techniques and a growing understanding of the biochemistry and the genetics of thought itself, scientists are beginning to tease out how exercise remodels the brain, making it more resistant to stress.
Funny. I saw a rat when exiting my urban workplace the other night. There was a rustle in a discarded bag of Chinese takeout, out comes a rat, which saunters into an area of decorative underbrush where I presume it has a bolt hole. That was one beefy, well-exercised and stone-cold calm rat. It could give a damn that a human was about three feet away. Come to think of it, I wasn’t overly alarmed either, if mildly revolted, that a rat was about three feet away, but we were both moving calmly in opposite directions.
OK, a couple days of short runs with uphill windsprints, one day of walking, plus bursts of calisthenics to burn so far this week. Today, maybe a longer run. J.D. Johannes writes from some FOB in the Tikrit area that his “combat fitness challenge of the day” the other day was “… walking around in the Iraqi mud in gear with a TV camera in one hand, tripod in the other.” That’s a workout. No mention of incoming, which would give it the “burn” level of intensity, with the adrenaline jolt to make it easy and fun. Especially with the extended laughing fit at the other end, if they missed. Because smiling and laughing, like exercise, have the surprising benefits of making you feel better.
Johnnes also advises that I’ll eventually hit a ceiling in my “gravity gym” and have to incorporate more weights than the dumbells I’m currently using.
Your body weight workout can follow the principles of overload over
time very easily. Just follow the Rosenfield rules.Where you will bump into a problem–and this is months down the
road–is that you will be doing more reps than are productive for
hyper-trophy. The failure point will be cardio vascular, not from
muscle overload. That is the only downside of body-weight workout.At that point you will have to start working with some type of
additional weight to maintain hypertrophy. Unless you are some type
of Bruce Lee genetic freak–but very, very few of us are.The key though is eating. Nita and look at it as 30% weight lifting,
5% cardio training 65% what you eat.
For the moment, I’m using his program (which lays out the Coach Rosenfield rules) for insight and inspiration in the areas of short, fast intensity, observation, pushing past plateaus and nutrition, but resisting the idea of diving full-on into gym ratdom. I like open spaces, using my body and nature against each other. My plan at present is to extend my gravity calisthenic routine by incorporating more elements from the The Official United States Navy SEAL Workout and books of that sort. Other plans include putting up one of these Joist Mount Chin Up Bars and a heavy bag, the goal again not beng to bulk up but to get lean and build endurance.
Back to the “rat happy” bit. Johannes and I also had an email exchange about being mentally “fit for combat.” He reports something I also experienced … being calm in combat. In my case, it was a bit of a surprise. My pre-Iraq experiences with hostile mortar and rifle fire had involved brief intense fear spikes. They were not debilitating and did not prevent me from doing what I needed to do, and I marked them down to inexperience, though in retrospect I was neither fully mentally or physically prepared.
Johannes reports:
I never get nervous or apprehensive. I stay very calm in a
gunfight .. like Clerachus from Xenophon’s “Persian Expedition” I
work very hard and put a lot of effort into being in wars.
In Iraq, a more intense combat exposure, I experienced a brief fear verging on panic in the dark, lonely waking hours before my first big combat assault, when I wondered whether and how I was going to be killed or maimed, why I was doing this, and wished I was safe at home. Then, a brief black depression with the belief that I would be orphaning my children, experienced the day before the big assault on Baghdad. Otherwise, in a couple of weeks of daily contact, we wanted it, we enjoyed it, and almost without exception, the men around me were composed, focused and calm. There was an intensity, which I see written all over the faces in photos from that time, but my overriding sensation recorded at the time was of an altered, enhanced state. Not to overstate the case. The intensity in the photos shows reveals stress, and the clam altered states was interrupted by “oh shit” moments, and other expressions of urgency and exasperation when, for example, RPGs tracked in our direction, or the performance of weapons and comrades failed to meet acceptable standards or the enemy popped up in unexpected places. Close calls were followed by giggle fits or shrugs, as Johannes reports in an incident in which he was grazed by rifle fire.
This overall phenomenon persisted through combat that included friendly WIAs, a lot of enemy death and threats very close at hand, plus news of the loss of acquaintances. Presumeably there are diminishing returns, with heightened loss and intensity, though a Marine I know reported the same sensation persisting through loss of friends in heavy combat in Falluja, though he reported his Iraq experience no longer had the “warm and fuzzy” feel of the invasion. Having lost his leg, he was trying to figure out how to get back.
Rat happy? In the company in which I moved through heavy combat, everyone, myself included, had been in extended fitness programs and had been living a rigorous lifestyle since halting daily workouts a few weeks earlier.
So maybe our neurons were nicely infused with new, fearless genes, as the Princeton research would suggest. That, and then there were the more proximate infusions of lots of adrenaline and I’m guessing some heavy endorphin jolts. I’ll need to look into this, because I’ve heard similar reports of transcendental experiences from a number of combat veterans, and my theory ever since experiencing it is that humans are combat animals, hardwired for combat, because where we came from, it wasn’t a choice, it was a lifestyle. Aided, back in the day, by the arduous workout of irregularly alternating heavy lift, endurance and short-bursts intensity that daily life entailed.
In any case, far from combat, here in this sheltered 21st-century civilian world, with all the usual daily and long-term stresses and aggravations exascerbated by uncertain times, I am noticing a benefit from my six monhs of escalating physical activity, a pervading sense of calm, with endorphin spikes on intense workout days. Eating, loading up on sugar and starch, impulses some people turn to, have an extremely short benefit in this regard and as a stress reaction are almost immediately followed by more stress.
The stress-reducing benefits of exercise, on the other hand, are more enduring both in the short and long runs. I hope to expand on this, because I like being … rat happy.
Previously, in the “Life Forever Or Die Trying” series:
Old? Fat? Feeling Death’s Icy Chill Down Your Neck? How To Live Forever Part 1, the Crittenden Workout for Middle-Aged Fat Bastards.
How To Live Forever Part 2 The Beer Workout. Drink and be healthy.
How to Live Forever Part 3 Israeli research finding: Advanced geezerdom no bar to exercise’s life-extending benefits.
How To Live Forever Part 4: Fit For Combat You think preparing for combat is healthy? Try combat. Hey, when’s someone going to market the Combat Weight Loss Program?
Run For Your Lives! Just got in that dirty little two-miler …
Danger Zone How to eat all you want this holiday season and not let something dumb like winter interfere with your workout program …
Hurt More You’ll feel better.
Ready to Hurt More Got pain? Learn from the pros.
Working Out On The Go! J.D. Johannes’ Iraqi Forward Operating Base workout.
RCAF Plan In which a 67-year-old makes me look lame, and offers some good, simple advice.
Fit for Combat? Hardly …
Fit Fight Short, intense workout fun.
Know Your Limitations You’re not a ninja …
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Topics: Live Forever Or Die Trying!
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 8:52 am Comments (1) on Thursday, November 19, 2009
One Response to “Rat Happy”
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November 19th, 2009 at 2:16 pm
Just FYI, artistic creation (music, painting, sculpting, etc) can also make you rat-happy, although it obviously doesn’t have the other physical benefits. You know you’ve often lost yourself in writing, haven’t you?