20 Amazing Benefits of Running Everyday You Might Not Know About

Gym, strength training, and workout machines, each of these are good for building muscle, shedding calories, or improving your health. 

However, the benefits of running every day are so many that you should indeed consider taking it up. While you should not give up other fitness activities, adding running to your fitness routine is an excellent strategy.

Running for as little as 20 minutes can change your body, mind, and soul. And don’t think of this as an exaggeration because the benefits of running are supported by scientific research.  

These are 20 amazing benefits you might not know about running every day. While some of these will start manifesting right away, others will be visible in a few weeks, months, or years. 

1. Running Boosts Your Mood

Running can improve your mood right away. If you are feeling low, even 20-30 minutes of running will boost your mood instantly. 

This will help you start your day on a positive note. This is why many runners do their morning run religiously. It gives them a daily dose of energy right at the start of their day.

By working as an antidepressant, running will help you beat your depression by lifting your mood. This is because of the chemicals produced by running that give you positive emotions. 

In addition to running every day, you can add meditation to your daily routine for a more significant positive feeling. 

2. Running Helps You Relax Mentally

Modern lifestyles are riddled with mental stress. Running can help you feel relaxed and stop overthinking, thus preparing you to cope with any stresses. This is because running reduces any activity in your frontal cortex immediately. Because of this, it is the healthiest and most straightforward way of breaking free from your daily grind. 

Ongoing stress can also lead to panic attacks and anxiety disorders. When you add running into your daily routine, you will be better equipped to deal with stress build-ups. This is because people who are physically active are less likely to panic when placed in fearful situations.

3. Running Gives You A High

Running stimulates reward and pleasure receptors that can elevate your mood like recreational drugs. This is also true for other forms of exercise and the reason why addiction therapies often include exercise.

By triggering the production of endocannabinoids, running makes you feel more focused and happier. Because of the positive impact of exercise on creativity and mood, your overall performance in your work, studies, and life itself benefits.

4. Running Improves Your Body’s Systems

In addition to positively affecting your mental state and moods, running also fine-tunes several systems and parts of your body. 

Running daily helps to regulate blood pressure like other aerobic exercises. It can be a drug-free treatment for people with hypertension.

Additionally, you can improve your insulin sensitivity by running regularly. This happens because your muscles use energy and glucose as you run, and as a result, your blood sugar decreases.

Running affects your metabolism too. If you have a 45-minute daily workout, including warm-up and running, your metabolism will have a boost for several hours. And these are just a few of the positive impacts that running has on your health.

5. Running Improves Productivity

Whether you are a professional, a student, entrepreneur, or businessperson, a morning run will improve your productivity all day. Not only will you feel happier and more positive, but you will also see greater efficiency within yourself. 

To confirm this, try running every day for one week, observe your mood and productivity, and then don’t run the next week. You will surely note the lack of improvement in performance or mood on the days you skip your morning run.

This positivity and feeling of being more productive do not end at the workplace. When you keep running daily, you will observe some of this impacting your personal life and relationships too. 

6. Running Enhances Mental Strength

Just as starting your day by making your bed and having a healthy breakfast can give you a feeling of accomplishment that goes with you through the day, running does something similar. 

It makes you think of yourself rather highly, enhances your body image, and boosts confidence. 

Running works effectively as a tool for improving children’s self-esteem too. Research studies suggest that taking up exercising or running can help children and adults in feeling more attractive. 

Psychological disorders and mental illnesses are continuing to affect more and more people. However, research shows that people who run in a natural environment are shielded from mental health issues. 

Due to this reason, always choose to run in a natural setting instead of exercising at the gym or home. 

7. Running Makes You A Quick Learner

As running becomes a part of your daily routine, you will start feeling smarter because you will be able to process information more quickly. 

Whether you are in a classroom or office, if you are a runner, your performance will be better.

The reason is that running causes an increase in cortisol levels, which is essential for retaining information and improving the ability to memorize. By stimulating the growth of grey matter in your brain, running for a month will make you feel more focused, adaptable, and prepared to deal with challenges. 

Whether you are a student or professional, you will surely benefit from better outcomes, whether better grades or promotions.

8. Running Makes You Feel in Control

Running and other aerobic exercises activate the brain area that performs functions such as working memory, attention control, and cognitive flexibility. 

All these abilities will help you work towards your objectives with a greater focus. This is because being physically fit and healthy enables people to manage negative feelings and retain a positive approach.

9. Running Helps to Burn Calories

Running provides an excellent way to burn calories. While you may already know that, you may not know that this continues even after you stop doing it. 

Your body will continue to burn more calories in the next several hours. This is why running and other aerobic exercises are very good for weight loss programs.

Many people run with the assumption that running more will help them burn more calories and lose weight faster. That is only true to some extent. Running does burn calories very effectively. However, the problem is that once you start running more, your body gains efficiency while using fewer calories.

You will surely lose some pounds initially, but this will stop once your body adjusts to this exercise. The frustration of not losing further weight can cause people to give up.

There are better ways of managing your running routine. You can choose to run between three to five days for nearly 20 minutes. Run with intervals and do short, intense bursts of running followed by gaps for recovery. This will help you burn more calories faster. In fact, you will continue to burn calories even when you are walking during your running break.

Keep changing your intervals, too, so that your body does not adjust to this routine. 

10. Running Helps You Sleep Better

Too many people have more problems with sleep these days than ever before. Running helps with this too. 

By running every day, you will be able to sleep more quickly and easily. As the quality and time of your sleep improve, this will impact your mind and body positively. With the much-needed rest, your mind and body will have a better psychological performance.

This won’t happen overnight. Your body is likely to take a few months to become used to your increase in exercise. So hang in there and keep exercising.

It is important to do your running earlier in the day or at least a few hours before your bedtime. If you do your run at night, it may be a challenge. This is because physical activity stimulates the nervous system, and until it normalizes, you cannot sleep. 

The latest you should run is a minimum of two hours before you lay down to sleep. 

Your ability to sleep well has an impact on your energy level and your ability to run well the next day too. Additionally, your muscles repair and grow while you are asleep. Your body will therefore recover and grow better with a better and longer sleep routine.  

11. Running Makes You An Inspiration

When you continue running daily for a month or more, people will start noticing the changes in your body and attitude. 

This can make you a source of inspiration for friends and family. Do share your running routine and encourage your friends to join you. You can motivate them to achieve and surpass your milestones. 

Whether you run with a friend or compete, both will help and motivate you to improve your time or distance. Additionally, having a running partner makes it more fun and provides motivational support for when you want to skip a day’s workout.

12. Running Helps You Live A Healthy Lifestyle

As running becomes a part of your lifestyle, you will find yourself making healthier, wiser choices. You will improve your diet and start thinking about healthy food options. 

The reason is that you will continually work to improve your running goals and try to run longer distances and at a better speed. This will only be possible when your lifestyle is healthy. 

When running becomes part of your everyday life, it can also help you cut out additions or bad habits such as smoking, drinking, or even recreational drugs. The cravings will become lesser after a few weeks, and instead, you will have the urge to eat something healthy after a long run. 

You may even be surprised to see yourself choosing fruits and vegetables for a meal.  

You will start making smarter choices in life, not just your diet. As your self-control improves, you will make fewer impulsive decisions. The ability to forgo instant gratification and choose well-being and health is an important habit with long-term benefits. 

13. Running Makes You Feel Energized

When you’ve been running every day for a few weeks, you will realize that ongoing fatigue is no longer a factor in your life. You will have the energy to go through your day-to-day tasks. That in itself is such an achievement. 

When you compare your energy levels with those of your peers who do not run or exercise, you will notice a marked difference. 

As you keep running, you will continue to observe that your continuous exhaustion will be replaced by a boosted energy level and enthusiasm.

14. Running Makes You Look Good

While you may have started running every day for a healthier body or mental health, it will also improve your looks. 

After a few weeks, you will start shedding those extra pounds and get into better shape. Furthermore, your complexion will be better and probably have fewer skin issues, like pimples and acne. 

All this will not be simply achieved because you are running but due to the overall impact running has had on your lifestyle choices. By making healthy eating choices, sleeping better, and coping with stress, your appearance will surely improve. 

Running also improves posture, and an upright posture adds so much to your final look.  

15. Running Improves Your Love Life

One of the benefits of running every day is improved levels of testosterone in men, particularly if they do intensive interval running. 

Higher levels of testosterone improve sex drive. Exercising also improves sperm count, whereas endurance training enhances reproductive potential. All these are likely to make you a more attractive and desirable partner.

Women’s love life also benefits from running. According to research, women experience a boost in physiological arousal after 20 minutes of intensive running.

One of the most interesting benefits of running every day is that couples running together are more likely to have sex together. So if your partner is not running with you, this information could be a positive motivator.

16. Running Keeps Your Heart Healthy

Too many people have high LDL, which is bad cholesterol. If you are a regular runner, you are less likely to have this problem. Simply running 1-2 miles per day can help you manage your cholesterol. 

By running 7-14 miles a week, you are remaining sufficiently active to maintain healthy blood pressure. The American Heart Association recommends 150 minutes of physical activity, and this is not very difficult to achieve if you are running every day.

Another important aspect of your heart’s health is the low C-reactive protein level. This tends to be higher for people with a sedentary lifestyle. Once you start running or exercising regularly, just a few months can help improve this. 

You can also reverse the vascular stiffening caused by age. After running regularly for a few months, your arteries will function as they did a few years ago. 

17. Running Keeps Blood Sugar in Control

If you have diabetes, your doctor must have advised you to take up regular physical activity already. The reason is that regular running or other exercising improves the body’s functions and keeps your diabetes stats in control. 

Research studies have found that patients with active running or exercising routines are able to control depression and blood sugar. You can add weight training to your regular running for even better results.

18. Running Makes You Stronger

Regular running causes neuromuscular changes, which bring about improved running efficiency. 

After a few weeks of running, you will start running longer distances but consume less energy. The reason is that your tendons and muscles will adjust themselves according to the higher workload. This will help you in doing better at sports and other physical activities.

Having improved strength in your knees is good irrespective of your age. Even people who don’t have knee-related health issues benefit from running as their knees get healthier and stronger with regular running. 

Too many people suffer from problems with their backs at some time. In fact, back problems are one of the most frequent reasons that people visit doctors. However, once you become a regular runner, you can avoid back pain to a great extent. The reason is that running can make your intervertebral discs stronger.

You will also observe that you are running better after a few weeks as your quads, thighs, and hamstrings gain strength. These are important muscles, and strengthening them can really improve your overall strength.  

However, if you are recovering from an illness or injury, always consult your physician before taking up strenuous running routines.

19. Running Helps You Lose & Maintain Weight

People often gain additional weight by the age of 40. This results in an increased possibility of health issues such as obesity, diabetes, or depression. 

If you have been running for a while, you are more likely to stay away from these issues. Even if you have been affected by any of these health challenges, running will help you manage them better.

Another problem faced by people in their later ages is osteoporosis and poor bone health. This is more common among women. However, by starting and maintaining your running routine earlier in your age, you can improve the health of your bones considerably.

Running also helps to make your core muscles stronger. These muscles support the spine and stomach, and when they are stronger, it is easier for you to maintain an upright posture.  

20. Running Helps You Live Your Life to The Fullest

Would you like to know what will happen when you continue running for several years? Many long-term benefits matter a lot. 

You will look younger than your actual age. The reason is that the biological aging process slows down with regular exercise. Aging affects the skin. Running will keep your skin fresh and healthy, making you look much younger.

It can also help you live longer. Research studies have found that regular exercise can add 3 to 5 years to people’s life expectancy. But living longer is not the only thing, running helps to improve your quality of life.

People who exercise or run regularly through most of their lives often lead more active lives with fewer disabilities in comparison to people with sedentary lives.

Remember that running is not the reason for all these successes in isolation but the reason behind all the lifestyle changes that come with a regular exercise routine. 

When you eat healthily, sleep well, leave smoking and drinking, and improve your mental health, all these changes contribute towards you living life to the fullest for longer.   

Is Running Everyday Bad?

While running is one of the best, cost-effective exercises that can improve your fitness levels and mood, there are myths around the disadvantages of running every day. Some people suggest that running daily can cause injuries and be counterproductive. 

Let us first discuss the kind of injuries and what causes them.

There can be two reasons for stress injuries caused by overload, the total mileage and the number of days you run consecutively. If you have been running for ten days with several miles on each day, you are surely in a higher risk category. 

Whether you are a beginner or an expert runner, running exerts your tissues and muscles. Yes, it can increase the risk of injury due to repetitive trauma. Such injuries include stress fractures and stress injuries to ligaments, tendons, and muscles. There is also the possibility of inflammation and pain in tendons and muscles along your shin.

Excessive running can cause serious harm to your health, and you must be realistic and careful.

However, you can run quite safely every day by following some very simple guidelines. 

Don’t overdo your running. Start slowly and build up your running distance, time, and speed gradually. The people you see rush by you on the track have probably been doing it for years. You will get there too, but only with incremental increases in your running goals.

According to research, people who run rigorously have similar benefits to those who run moderately. This means that you can benefit from running regularly without having to push yourself beyond your running capacity. 

Keep Running – Gain More Benefits of Running Every Day 

While we have gone through 20 amazing benefits of running every day, this list can go on. So put on your running shoes and step out of your door. And your running has already started.

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