What Causes A Runner's High? Here's What We Know So Far

Toned thighs and a strong cardiovascular system are great and all, but most runners will tell you that it's the mental health benefits of the sport that keep them lacing up their sneakers.

First off, we know that running isn't the only exercise that can cause a borderline euphoric experience. An extended period of any moderately intense cardio exercise—swimming, biking, etc.—has the potential to do so.

"What everyone agrees on at this point is that exercise has the ability to change your mood because it has a dramatic impact on your brain," Art Kramer, Ph.D., a professor of psychology and director of the Center for Cognitive and Brain Health at Northeastern University, previously told mbg.

As for how exercise changes the brain, neuroscientists looked into it in a 2008 study on 10 male endurance runners. They took two PET scans of each athlete's brains—both at rest and 30 minutes after a two-hour run—and compared the results. They found that running seemed to release endorphins in the frontolimbic area of the brain, which is involved in regulating mood. This explained why the runners' self-reported levels of "euphoria" and "happiness" also shot up after the long run.

In 2015, a team of German researchers challenged the notion that a runner's high is caused by endorphins and brain chemistry alone. They reasoned that these feel-good hormones don't cross the brain-blood barrier, so another mechanism must be responsible for the full-body bliss that can follow a cardio burst. 

These researchers also studied mice but looked specifically at their endocannabinoid activity after exercise. The endocannabinoid system, ECS for short, is a master regulatory system that extends throughout the entire body and plays a role in mood and relaxation as well as pain management.

Sure enough, after running, the mice had an increase in cannabinoids—naturally occurring compounds that boost activity in the ECS. Our bodies naturally release cannabinoids to keep the ECS running smoothly, and this research suggests that it might produce more of them during exercise2.

Certain plants also contain cannabinoids; one of the most ubiquitous being the fittingly named cannabis plant. Marijuana, a strain of cannabis, produces its own kind of high because of the way its THC cannabinoids interact with ECS receptors in the brain.

More research needs to be done on the link between the ECS, cannabinoids, and exercise, but the theory that they're connected tracks with the way we've heard people talk about their experience taking mbg's hemp multi+ supplement.*

Amanda Quadrini, from the brand partnerships team at mbg, for example, would equate the feeling she has after taking it to a runner's high: "It's like I just completed a tough workout—even if I haven't left my apartment yet that day," she wrote in her review of the product. *

Other reviewers say that the supplement—which combines organic hemp extract with other natural relaxants such as hops, black cumin seed, and rosemary*—helps them ease stress, promote a sense of calm, and feel overall more steady in the face of challenges, like a good run might.*