Who needs drugs when there's hot yoga?!

Photo Credit: Geralt

I once wanted to be a runner. Not an elite runner, just someone who liked going for a long, casual, weekly run as part of a healthy routine.  This seemed like a good plan for my future, so I read several books about becoming a runner - all of which said consistency was key.  So I ran.

In 2011, I trained for (and completed!) a half marathon.  Starting at three miles, I followed a charted training program with progressively longer runs every week for at least 12 consecutive weeks. Once I got lost while running an 8-mile route, ultimately going 13, and at some point I ran out of water and cried to a gas station attendant who gave me a cup and showed me a map to get home.  My sense of direction is THE WORST.  It was a few weeks before the race and the only positive of that experience was learning I could crawl 13 miles to complete the race if I had to, but I would cross that finish line.

And then race day came. Several of my best friends were also running that weekend in Providence, RI.  Four of us had booked a hotel room near the finish line.  The race started without issue, mostly flat with a little bit of a hill at the 3rd mile.  Mid-way through the race, a lady thanked me because I had been belting "Party in the USA" by Miley Cirus at the top of my lungs and she had forgotten her headphones. Poor lady.  I remember hitting the 10 mile marker and thinking: only 5K left to go! I've run several 5K's.  No big deal! And then my body started to say "Nope!  No More."  It was horrible and I wanted to die right there on the side of the road. I decided then that running wasn't for me.

I think I recall the day so clearly because upon waking the next morning, incapable of moving my legs despite the ice bath I had endured the night before, I remember watching the news to see President Obama announcing that Osama Bin Laden was dead. Last night, I finally learned why running is the worst.  In all the training runs, the 5K races, the half marathon race itself, and in every road race or stair climb I've done since then, I’ve never experienced what is commonly called “The Runner's High”. Sure, I feel good after a workout, but something was missing. 

"The Runner's High," according to this 2008 publication from the journal Cerebral Cortex, is defined as "a euphoric state resulting from long-distance running." The paper goes into detail about how they were studying opioid receptors in the frontal and limbic regions of the brain (the brain parts responsible for personality, behavior, mood, fear, and pleasure).  The measurements were done when the runners completed about a half marathon distance, so likely I just don't run long enough distances to get there.  But I don't want to run those kinds of distances to feel so good.

Last night I achieved the fabled runners high in the most unlikely of places.  I went to a power vinyasa class at Fusion Hot Yoga.  Sixty minutes of constant motion with a room full of strangers (and one friend) sweating profusely. They were celebrating the company’s birthday with a day of free classes and the participants were packed in - sardine can style.

The instructor, Brian Pittman, started class off with some supine bicycles. I have patients do 20 of them in the clinic all the time - nice! I know what I'm doing.  When we hit 50 I started to lower my legs, and then he said half way! Ha! I was sure I was done for and basically ended up in a static dead bug pose thinking “what have I gotten myself into?!” I’m not sure how hot the room was but if I had to guess it was about 85F with 1,000,000% humidity. It felt like I was swimming in a bowl of soup. I LOVE the heat.

I was thrilled to remember the names of many of the common poses and a frequent sequence of a low plank into an up-dog followed by a downward-facing-dog. I only felt like I might pass out twice and gave myself a few extra breaths in child's pose and some water to recover.  Afterwards, the adrenaline started.  I turned off the audio book in the car for the ride home so I could sing along to the radio.  I stopped for gas and was jumping up and down full of energy, and still sweating.  I slept the greatest sleep ever.  And then I woke up today and felt the high energy continue for most of the day.  Maybe it's all in my head... but I'm happier believing that I had a whole day of runner's high from an hour of yoga.  All day long I've wondered - how is there an opioid epidemic in the world - yoga has to be cheaper than heroin and this high has to feel infinitely better.  It was hard work to get there, but it didn't require me running 13 miles.

So this is my new solution to the opioid epidemic: for treatment of back pain or for detoxing off a heroin addition - see a physical therapist and go to hot yoga.  I already bought my Groupon for more classes, so you can come join me to sweat it out!