Could You Use a Little Hope Right Now?

I used to hate hiking. I thought it was a dusty, boring way of getting exercise.  That was until I was living in Los Angeles during the pandemic where, apart from a home workout, hiking was just about the safest place to move your body. We all had our own scary and uncertain emotions we were either finding healthy/ less healthy (hello “drinking on a Tuesday”) ways of coping with and it was hiking that became a weekly source of not only working out my body but whatever was happening in my head as well.  There is tons of research that links exercise to a lower risk of <insert pretty much any disease> but today we are going to talk about the science of why hiking (and every other form of exercise) is a saviour for your mental and emotional health too.

We know the belles of the ball, endorphins and serotonin, as the hormones released by exercise, but we want to tell you about another act on the line-up: a chain of amino acids called myokines which are also released during exercise ("myokine" is derived from the Greek words "myo-" (meaning "muscle") and "-kine" (meaning "movement" or "motion")).  We will call them by their artist name: “hope molecules” 🕺.  Dr Kelly McGonigal, who wrote the book “The Joy of Movement”, popularised the name by discussing how myokines chemically shift your mental state, improving optimism and resilience and suppressing fear, anxiety and worry.  They make movement a form of “self-administered therapy”.

Let’s meet a few of the hope molecules.  Irisin boosts neurogenesis and assists synaptic plasticity (basically, it helps your brain get better at learning through experience).  IL-6 (Interleukin-6) keeps your energy up and mind sharp by regulating how your body handles sugar and fat.  Cathepsin B fires up the hippocampus (your brain’s memory hub), helping you remember that pesky item you forgot to add to your to-do list and feel better while doing it. Hope molecules also teach the brain that physical effort can be linked to emotional reward.  All of the above might just explain why exercise leaves you feeling like you have more capacity to deal with traffic, screaming children and a heavy workload.

This all sounds great, right? Unfortunately, if you are wondering if there is another way to access hope molecules/myokines than movement … there isn’t (sorry folks, no pill (yet)).  You can only access them through exercise.  It doesn’t matter what kind.  It could be lifting weights, cardio, dancing, hula hooping.  So if you love yourself, one groovy way to show it is with exercise!