Positive Psychology, Psychotherapy & Cognitive Behavioral Sciences

I have self-discovered through my journey of running so far that running is indeed an ultimate source to health, happiness and wellbeing. My journey started four years ago. And before that I have been suffering from chronic anxiety and depression. I went through a severe attack of anxiety in 2012 and, I went spiralling down with cyclic negative depressive thought without any hope to come out of it and truly live the life with purpose. But with inner calling, I took up running. I prepared and ran my first 5k, 10k and by end of 2013, I ran my first half marathon. I started feeling good, got moral boost, felt self-worth and got a can-do feeling and continued running to my first full marathon in 2015. In the process, I overcame anxiety and depression and able to cope with its episodes without caving in it. This motivated me to go ahead and study effect of running on "Science of Happiness", "Positive Psychology" and "Mental Well-Being". I found out about how different neurotransmitters like endorphins and dopamine released by chemical responses on stimulation of brain helps to boost your confidence and gives euphoric effect (Runner's High). And I also learnt running as "large clinical impact" on depression. Based on my studies, I learnt that with applied positive psychology and the euphoric neural conditions that running creates enables to retrain your own brain to start taking things positively and alter its neural pathways to help deal with anxiety and depression by feeling motivated, energetic and confident. My mission, The Marathon for Life, which is alter ego now is to affirm the research and studies conducted on running and its impact on health, happiness and wellbeing. I intend to take the message mainstream and have collective inputs from all the runners with similar stories to potentially raise awareness for positively impacting lives to overcome anxiety/depression and for communities as whole.