A Legal Way to Get High?

Team e-mail 11.14.08

Hello PETA Pack!

 

How much do you love your friends and family?  You want them to help animals and sponsor your training.  But you also love them and you want to give them something back, right?  How about a fabulous feeling that doesn’t lead to jail, rehab or embarrassing run-ins in back alleys? 

 

A new scientific study shows that giving makes you feel good. Giving affects the same part of the brain stimulated by sex, drugs and money, according to researchers at the American National Institutes of Health.  A recent study looked into people's brains with MRIs while they made decisions to give.

 

Dr. Jorge Moll, the lead researcher on the study, said what they saw "strongly supports the existence of 'warm glow' at a biological level. It helps convince people that doing good can make them feel good; altruism therefore doesn't need to be ONLY sacrifice." Giving activated two areas of the brain: the part that is activated by reward reinforcement, which also is activated by sex, drugs and money, and

the part that influences social attachments, trust and economic interactions.

 

So there you have it.  When you ask your co-workers to donate to your run, you are also giving them a chance to feel great.  They’re helping you in a really meaningful way, and they are making a statement against animal suffering.  Plus they get that warm glow thing!  It’s really not fair.  We have to run to get our endorphin rush, but our sponsors get it without leaving their chair!

 

Hm.  Many of you are both running AND donating, which means you get a double whammy of the warm fuzzies.  What if you ran, and donated, AND went to Hawaii?  We’d have to keep a 24 hour watch on you, to make sure you didn’t OD on happiness!

 

FOOD:  Don’t You Dare Diet!

 

I’m getting tons of requests about how to lose weight so a person can either get into shape in the first place, or get into better shape and try to win the darn race on February 1^st.   I’ll tell you this:  Don’t diet!

 

Here are some snacking and eating tips, and I’ll be sending more tips and actual recipes in the coming weeks.

 

Have a great rest day today.  If you’re coming to San Francisco tomorrow morning, remember your baseball hat or visor. It might be really sunny.  If you’re running remotely—thank you and have a GREAT run!

 

Alex

p.s.

Want some warm fuzzies right now?  Check out this great essay Ingrid Newkirk posted to The PETA Files.