The Endorphin Effect
Based on some of your past experiences you may remember the positive effects that a run or sports practice had on your mind. That exciting feeling of spreading joy and tingliness you get in your stomach with the power of temporarily removing all of your worries. It can help to quickly improve depressive symptoms, as well as help to provide you with a better sleep at night by reducing your level of arousal and emotional stress.
This intoxicating feeling is the result of the production and build-up of happy hormones created by your body’s pituitary gland, initiating their release following certain activities that promote your survival. Among those happy chemicals, one of the most noteworthy ones are your endorphins.
High doses of endorphins may have you feel like you are flying on cloud 9. You can’t help but to smile, have a more positive outlook on your life, and be overall more enjoyable to be around. Additionally, you are significantly more likely to make more health-conscious decisions, which will help to make you feel happier in the long-term.
On the other hand, low doses of endorphins in a day, and you will likely not be thriving. You are more likely to feel down and resort to unhealthy decisions (e.g. going out to a fast food restaurant instead of cooking a healthy meal) to provide you with temporary joy and comfort. You may be more irritable and in the long-term may even show signs and symptoms associated with depression.
But what exercise is needed for you to feel the effects of an endorphin rush and get a daily endorphin boost? The good news is that you do not have to put too much of your time into it and you can do it no matter what your current fitness level!
Learn what type of exercise to perform, how to perform it, and how little time it actually takes to get a productive release of endorphins.
How do Endorphins work?
Your central nervous system (CNS) is the processing centre of a huge network of neural cells and includes two structures – your brain and your spinal cord. Your brain is home to hormonal glands, small-sized organs that release hormones when they are directed to. One of the most productive glands within your brain is called the pituitary gland.
Besides the release of many other hormones involved in growth and development, your pituitary gland also releases endorphins. This response is part of many natural reward circuits within your brain. Endorphins typically get released following physical exercise (more about this later) and provide us with feelings of pleasure and pain relief in a matter of minutes once the proper exercise stimulus has been provided.
At the level of the CNS, endorphins can trigger pain-blocking responses, similar to those in morphine. Endorphins were also found to have effects on brain structures involved in the regulation of emotions, likely leading to the feelings of euphoria following activity.
Exercise & Endorphins – What Does The Research say?
Research shows that an easy way to lift your mood, remove your worries and provide you with a sudden increase in your energy level is through regular physical activity. Exercise is helpful in the treatment for many mental health problem, such as anxiety, depression and different types of addictions. It can have a great effect on your immune system and overall health.
Let us dive deeper into what the current research says about strength and cardiovascular training, as well as some simple ways to include it into our daily or weekly regimen within 15 minutes or less.
a) Strength Training
Strength training refers to purposeful physical activity (traditionally in the way of dynamic movement) that is designed to improve the strength and endurance of specific muscle groups.
When examining the relationship between strength training and level of endorphin-production, research shows that strength training with rest periods of below one minute, as well as training sessions with high amounts of total work positively influences the body’s endorphin response [3]. Traditional strength training, on the other hand, has not been shown to significantly increase circulating endorphins within the bloodstream. A further area of interest in terms of its potential of creating feelings of euphoria is isometric strength training [2].
Isometric strength training refers to a static form of training, where your muscles are engaged while your limbs stay in the same position (for example: exercises such as a wall sit or plank). This type of exercise has shown to be effective in producing exercise-induced euphoria, as well as in reducing pain levels in injured limbs [2].
In summary, strength training appears to be an effective way to increase your daily endorphin levels. Strength training programs that allow muscles to work at high intensity, high total work, as well as include isometric exercises are favourable when it comes to the production of endorphins. Despite the existence of some promising research articles that analyse the relationship between strength training and endorphin-production, many articles conclude by saying that more research is needed to more accurately predict the endorphin-release effects of strength training [2].
b) Cardiovascular Training
Cardiovascular training at sufficient intensity (85%-100%) has been shown to increase circulating endorphin levels, often up to 3x. Higher levels were reported in the 100% intensity groups compared to the 85% intensity groups [2].
The higher the intensity of aerobic training, the greater the endorphin-release response. High volume, low intensity cardiovascular training did not show any significant increases in circulating endorphin levels.
Next time, instead of settling for a moderate intensity workout, see how a shorter, more intense workout makes you feel. Besides a sudden increase in happiness, high intensity training has many more benefits. For more information on the benefits of high intensity training, read my articles on finding out what exercise parameters are right for you and my article on high intensity resistance training.
c) Other Considerations
Time of Day: The time of day you perform your workout can have impacts on your mood. Try your best to work out before you start your busy day. You are likely to deal with your daily stressors more effectively with a better mood, which can prevent the build-up of negative emotions. Working out early in the morning can positively change your perspective on the problems you are going to encounter throughout the day.
Variety: Exercise variety has shown to enhance the release of endorphins. By activating and fatiguing different muscle groups through different patterns of muscle activation, you are challenging our body in a new way and adapt your body to overcome different challenges. This in turn can trigger your natural reward system, leading to a fresh rush of endorphins. This often happens because you have performed an activity that is likely going to benefit your survival and your body wants to reward you for that.
Other Endorphin Sources
If you are currently unable to perform physical activity, here are a few other sources to quickly increase your blood endorphin levels and provide you with a greater sense of wellbeing [1].
- Eat spicy food
- Spend time with close friends
- Have a piece of dark chocolate
- Sexual intercourse
For more sources, as well as detailed ways on how to boost your endorphin levels naturally, you can check out my article Endorphins – Exploiting Joy’s best sources.
Daily Endorphin Routine
Based on the above information, a good daily routine would include strength and cardiovascular training, as well as occasional variations in the exercise routine. The intensity of the exercise should be on the vigorous part of the spectrum. You can perform this sequentially within one exercise session. 10 minutes should be sufficient to bring about the endorphin effect. Minimize your breaks and make it difficult for yourself to activate your natural reward circuits.
If you have difficulty adding intensity to your workouts, I recommend purchasing a pair of occlusion bands. Occlusion bands are bands that you bind around your limbs, with the purpose to temporarily restrict blood flow to working musculature. You can read more about blood flow occlusion training here. For a detailed review on an occlusion band, read this article.
Prime Your Happiness
Following my career as a personal trainer, I have gained a great interest in creating long lasting happiness through minimal dose of exercise. Over the course of the past 4 years I have been passionately working on creating and refining a framework. It is composed of 4 stages and can be completed within 15 minutes. It should be performed no more than 2-3x per week.
Subscribe to my newsletter to read more about my framework, as well as receive weekly actionable tips on everything surrounding exercise and happiness. Click here to get to my newsletter.
Conclusion
Endorphins are your body’s natural opiate pain reliever. Regular sufficient doses can help decrease emotional stress, improve sleep, your immune system, mood and overall health. Based on experience, as well as peer reviewed research, the best form of exercise to perform is high intensity resistance and aerobic training. You will want to switch up your exercise routine regularly to maintain high endorphin release.
Research repeatedly shows that higher intensity workouts tend to provide your body with greater feeling of euphoria, reduce depression symptoms and lead to a happier lifestyle if performed regularly. Additionally, higher intensity workouts will provide you with a greater bang for your buck and save you lots of valuable time.
References
[1] Cafasso, J. (2017, July 12). Why Do We Need Endorphins? Healthline.
https://www.healthline.com/health/endorphins#:%7E:text=Endorphins%20are%20
polypeptides%20made%20by,occurs%20due%20to%20endorphin%20activity.
[2] Goldfarb, A. H., & Jamurtas, A. Z. (1997). Beta-Endorphin Response to Exercise. Sports
Medicine, 24(1), 8–16. https://doi.org/10.2165/00007256-199724010-00002