All Posts Tagged Tag: ‘Butch Warner’

In yesterday’s post we highlighted some articles written by Pasadena Recovery Center Addiction Specialist, Butch Warner, himself an avid runner and four time L.A. Marathoner. In one VC Reporter piece, Butch evidences how running can be a “good” addiction:

Researchers, therapists and counselors have customarily confined their use of the term “addiction” to drugs that foster physical and psychological dependence. But new knowledge suggests that, as far as the brain is concerned, a reward is a reward, whether it comes from a chemical or an event.

Butch also discusses how continuous exercise can lead to increased production and release of endorphins – neurotransmitters found in the brain – that creates a sense of euphoria or “runner’s high.”

Similarly, people are more likely to have epiphanies - moments of sudden revelation or insight – “while running because our sensory systems are hyper-aware and flooded with endorphins.”

And the great American author Joyce Carol Oates felt that running and creativity went hand in hand:

Running! If there’s any activity happier, more exhilarating, more nourishing to the imagination, I can’t think what it might be. In running the mind flies with the body; the mysterious efflorescence of language seems to pulse in the brain, in rhythm with our feet and the swinging of our arms. Ideally, the runner who’s a writer is running through the land and cityscapes of her fiction, like a ghost in a real setting.

So whether one is battling addiction, searching for clarity or insight, or pursuing creativity, running just might be the answer.

NOTE: The author of this post is a dedicated runner who does some of his best thinking racking up miles near his home in West Los Angeles.