When it gets cold, many people's moods also begin to feel sad about spring and autumn, and they eat a lot to relieve their heartache. However, this is most likely SAD (seasonal affective disorder)!

TIPS: Seasonal affective disorder (SAD), which occurs more often in autumn and winter, manifests as recurrent depressive symptoms, excessive sleep, various cravings for carbohydrates, and weight gain.

However, SAD is actually a normal response adjustment for us as living beings to seasonal changes, so we don't need to panic and be overly frustrated.

As we have said before, SAD can also be alleviated by good adjustments in a normal way.

For example, the first two issues suggested to everyone: do more aerobic exercise appropriately, and bask in the sun more when the weather is good. Studies have shown that moderate-to-high-intensity aerobic activity has significant antidepressant effects and is even used as an effective treatment for depression (1). One hour of natural light a day also has a positive effect on improving the subjects' self-evaluation (2).

So I sincerely suggest that if you feel particularly tired from fitness recently, your diet is difficult to control, and your temper is irritable...... You can try a morning run.

Morning running can help improve your circadian rhythm (SAD can cause drowsiness), and doing a pleasant aerobic activity in the sun will also make you feel refreshed and in a good mood.

Of course, some people may say: Although running is good, I am used to lifting iron to practice strength, and I feel that running is boring, it is difficult to start, and it is even more difficult to persevere! At this time, you can consider calling your buddies/girlfriends around you and running together~

1. Running, can it still be contagious?

When exercising, many people like to practice silently alone with headphones, which is more efficient and effective.But for aerobic exercises such as running, the latest research shows that when you ask a friend to run together, it will make your running effect better~

A new study by MIT recorded and analyzed the daily exercise habits (including geographic information, social activity, specific exercise data, etc.) of nearly 1.1 million runners over five years.It was found that exercise behavior such as running is actually "contagious".

When you know that your friends run on the same day, it will also "stimulate" you to train longer that day (3).

On the same day: When you know that your friend has run an extra 1 kilometer, this will stimulate you to run about 300 meters more. When you know that your friend is running faster today, you will also run faster; For example, if your friend runs 50 meters per minute more than usual today, you may also run 15 meters more than usual. In addition, when you know that your friend ran for 10 minutes more today, you will also be affected to run for 3 more minutes; And when you know that your friend consumes 10 kcal more exercise today, you will also try to move more, consuming 3.5 kcal more than usual.

As for why "you" are so influenced by "friends", this is actually a phenomenon of "behavioral transmission" in social behavior. We know that many things between humans are actually infectious to each other, such as the most familiar bacteria and viruses, as well as obesity, etc. that we introduced earlier.

Similarly, the people around you will affect your exercise habits, which is actually a positive "contagion".

And this kind of behavior is "contagious", not only face-to-face, but also contagious to each other on the Internet.

In other words, if you want to find friends to run to supervise your exercise, you don't have to meet offline, online WeChat supervision, and checking in with each other is just as feasible and effective. (In a way, this may also be the main reason why WeChat's daily sports rankings are not popular)

2. Did you know that they are more likely to affect you!

In addition, scientists also found several interesting phenomena in this study:

Runners are more susceptible to people who are slightly worse than themselves, but not so far behind, compared to themselves and those who perform better than you......

The impact of inactive runners on active runners is greater than that of positive runners; Similarly, people who run irregularly have a greater impact on regular exercisers than regular people on irregular exercises.

To put it simply, although from the perspective of "behavioral communication", the people around you will more or less affect you (better than you will motivate you to improve yourself, and those who are worse than you will make you work hard to maintain your advantage).

But overall, people may be more likely to compare with people who are worse than themselves and are more influenced by them......

In addition, research also shows that different genders will cause you to be influenced by the people around you to different degrees. Men are affected by the same influence as men and women around them. On the other hand, women are not easily influenced by men, but only by women of the same gender.

Therefore, it is recommended that you choose the right runner for yourself according to your exercise habits, gender, etc.

reference：

①Schuch, F. B., Vancampfort, D., Richards, J., Rosenbaum, S., Ward, P. B., & Stubbs, B. (2016). Exercise as a treatment for depression: a meta-analysis adjusting for publication bias. Journal of Psychiatric Research,77, 42.

②Wirzjustice, A., Graw, P., Kräuchi, K., Sarrafzadeh, A., English, J., & Arendt, J., et al. (1996). 'natural' light treatment of seasonal affective disorder. J Affect Disord, 37(2-3), 109-120.

③Aral, S., & Nicolaides, C. (2017). Exercise contagion in a global social network. Nature Communications, 8, 14753.