{"id":111554,"date":"2020-03-02T13:25:59","date_gmt":"2020-03-02T19:25:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/?p=111554"},"modified":"2026-09-12T22:08:53","modified_gmt":"2026-09-13T03:08:53","slug":"podcast-589-how-exercise-helps-us-find-happiness-hope-connection-and-courage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/strength\/fitness\/podcast-589-how-exercise-helps-us-find-happiness-hope-connection-and-courage\/","title":{"rendered":"Podcast #589: How Exercise Helps Us Find Happiness, Hope, Connection, and Courage"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>You know how good moving your body is for your&nbsp;physical&nbsp;health. You probably have a vague sense that it&#8217;s good for your mental&nbsp;health too. But you likely don&#8217;t realize just how powerful&nbsp;movement&nbsp;truly is for your mind, and that it even affects your sense of hope, courage, connection, and identity.<\/div>\n<div>&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div>My guest today explores these lesser-appreciated impacts of physical&nbsp;activity in her new book,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/2CZU9IH\"><i>The Joy of&nbsp;Movement<\/i><\/a>. Her name is <a href=\"http:\/\/kellymcgonigal.com\/\">Kelly McGonigal<\/a> and she&#8217;s a research psychologist and lecturer&nbsp;at Stanford University. Kelly and I begin our discussion&nbsp;with the idea of the runner&#8217;s high, and whether you can get it from doing forms of exercise other than running. We then discuss how exercise can become powerfully addictive, and yet be a uniquely healthy form of addiction that improves instead of destroys mental health. We then discuss the way that moving our bodies with others can generate collective joy, as well as a muscular&nbsp;bonding that makes a group feel bigger and stronger. We also get into what elements go into an ideal pump-up song, how physical&nbsp;movement&nbsp;helps create your sense of self, and why exercising in nature seems to amplify all its beneficial effects. We end our conversation with what you can start doing today to get more of the potent benefits of physical&nbsp;movement.&nbsp;<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>You know how good moving your body is for your&nbsp;physical&nbsp;health. You probably have a vague sense that it&#8217;s good for your mental&nbsp;health too. But you likely don&#8217;t realize just how powerful&nbsp;movement&nbsp;truly is for your mind, and that it even affects your sense of hope, courage, connection, and identity. &nbsp; My guest today explores these lesser-appreciated [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":195090,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[230,156,42380],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-111554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fitness","category-podcast","category-strength"],"featured_image_urls":{"large":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/589-538x280.png","medium_large":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/589-768x432.png","aom":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/589-372x230.png","reactor-320":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/589-320x180.png","reactor-640":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/589-640x360.png"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v28.4 (Yoast SEO 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powerful\u00a0movement\u00a0truly is for your mind, and that it even affects your sense of hope, courage, connection, and identity.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/strength\/fitness\/podcast-589-how-exercise-helps-us-find-happiness-hope-connection-and-courage\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Art of Manliness\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"http:\/\/facebook.com\/artofmanliness\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-03-02T19:25:59+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-09-13T03:08:53+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/589.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1280\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"720\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Brett\" \/>\n<meta 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