The key ideas

The Joy of Movement: How Exercise Helps Us Find Happiness, Hope, Connection, and Courage

Kelly McGonigal, 2019

Why does a long run make you want to hug the whole world, and why does dancing in step with strangers make them feel almost like family? Psychologist Kelly McGonigal gathered research and the stories of people for whom movement became something to lean on. Her book explains how the body rewards us for effort and why the joy of movement so often turns out to be the joy of being together.

Who it is for

For those who think sport isn't for them, and for those who already train but want to understand why movement changes their mood so much. And for everyone who wishes they had more people around them.

The runner's high isn't a running high. It's a persistence high.

Twenty-two and the door to the aerobics studio

She is twenty-two, a shy psychology graduate student who has lived with anxiety since childhood. In a few minutes she has an audition to become a group aerobics instructor. Every combination of moves has been rehearsed until it's automatic, but her stomach is in knots and she wants to go home. She stays.

That graduate student is Kelly McGonigal. For almost twenty years she has led group exercise classes, and for this book she looked for the answer to one question: why does movement make us happier?

The answer turned out to be broader than the familiar “endorphins lift your mood”. The author believes the body rewards us for moving because, for our ancestors, moving meant taking part in life. As the book shows, this joy comes from movement itself, not from being in good shape. And much of it turns out to be the joy of connecting with other people.

Next you'll learn why the runner's high isn't about running at all, how many weeks it takes to fall in love with working out, and where courage comes from.

Why dogs enjoy running and ferrets don't

Anthropologist David Raichlen wondered: what made our ancestors walk and run after prey for hours, if the brain likes to save energy? He suggested that the runner's high was a reward for persistence.

In Raichlen's experiments, neither a slow half-hour walk on a treadmill nor running flat out changed anything. But after an easy run, the blood level of special substances called endocannabinoids tripled. They ease pain and anxiety, and cannabis mimics their effect.

Then dogs, whose ancestors ran down their prey, got on the treadmill, along with ferrets, which hunt without a long chase. The dogs' levels rose, the ferrets' did not. It seems that nature rewards the pace at which food was once obtained. This is the scientist's hypothesis, but it explains why neither a lazy stroll nor an exhausting sprint brings joy.

Hence the author's conclusion: the runner's high comes not from running but from persistence. Take an older woman named Julia, who lives with a rare disease that disrupts her balance. Every morning she walks 500 meters and climbs 140 stairs in her building. Julia insists she gets a real kick out of it. To earn this reward, it's enough to spend at least twenty minutes doing something that is moderately difficult for you in particular.

This chemistry has a second effect, too. According to data McGonigal cites, endocannabinoids make socializing more pleasant. On days they exercised, people more often reported good interactions with friends and family.

Read in Livria

About the author

Kelly McGonigal is a health psychologist who teaches at Stanford University and has led group exercise classes for almost twenty years. She is the author of The Willpower Instinct.

All books by this author: Kelly McGonigal

Terms from the book

  • Endorphins
  • Julia
  • Dopamine
  • Raichlen: David Raichlen, an American anthropologist at the University of Arizona. He studies how evolution made humans endurance runners. In his experiments he tested why running can feel good.
  • Endocannabinoids: Substances the brain produces. They ease pain and anxiety; cannabis compounds mimic their effect.
  • Haefele: Nora Haefele, an American tax accountant. She started competing in walking and running races after fifty and has run more than eighty half marathons.
  • Reward system: A network of brain regions responsible for pleasure and the urge to repeat something pleasant. Dopamine plays an important role in it.
  • Receptors: Molecules on the surface of a cell that pick up a particular substance, such as dopamine, and pass a signal to the cell.
  • Tarr: Bronwyn Tarr, a psychologist who studies how dance and synchronized movement bring people closer.
  • Marajó: A large island at the mouth of the Amazon River, in Brazil.
  • Carimbó: A folk dance from the Brazilian state of Pará, danced to drums, flute and guitar.
  • Synchrony: Coinciding in time. Here: when people make the same movements at the same time, to the same rhythm.
  • Iwanuma: A coastal city in Japan. It was badly hit by the earthquake and tsunami in 2011.
  • Merrifield: Cathy Merrifield, a mother of four who completed the Tough Mudder obstacle course for the first time at forty-four.
  • Tough Mudder: A series of mass obstacle course races: participants crawl through mud, jump into icy water, climb over walls and help each other.
  • Norris: Katie Norris, an American Unitarian Universalist minister and CrossFit coach.
  • CrossFit: A training system that combines strength exercises, gymnastics and running into short, intense workouts, often in a group.
  • Loland: Sigmund Loland, a Norwegian philosopher who specializes in sports ethics.

All terms

Similar books