I want to die. Or at least that's the thought I had as I was looking up this crazy behemoth of a hill on my third ever run. It was Everest, it was my Kilimanjaro. There was no way I was gonna surmount up this crazy, crazy hill. I would need like an entire
team to carry me up there, and there was no team. It was just me. Every single part of my
body was reminding me, telling me, "Look, Zach, you gotta stop. "You need to stop." And this was all because
three days earlier, I had begun my 30-day running challenge. (upbeat music) So during lockdown in
the beginning of 2020, I wasn't going to the gym anymore. All the gyms were closed, and I couldn't go to yoga classes anymore. All the yoga studios were closed. I wasn't even walking to
and from class anymore because I was at home
in the world of Zoom. The suburbs and medical
school via Zoom were my life. All of my exercising
outlets were just gone, and of course the excuses were there. You know, I'm in medical school, one of the hardest studying
things ever, right? It's COVID. It makes sense that you can't go out and exercise and stuff like that. You should stay together with family. Slowly, as I spent more
time just inside at home, just staring at Zoom, I
noticed that my body and mind were just going downhill, and I also noticed that
I was studying less and this made no sense to me. Why was I studying less, even though I had more time in the day? What was going on here? Was my physical fitness and my mental fitness somehow connected? A critical moment for me is I was going on a walk with my parents, 'cause that's all we could do when we were inside during COVID, and I noticed that about
20 minutes into the walk, I was kind of out of breath. It was a long walk up and down hills and my parents were ahead of me, breathing fine, talking fine. I was like, wait, wait, this can't fly. I needed to break the pattern. I couldn't be more out
of shape than my parents, who were in their 60s and I'm in my 20s, so I decided to do something, something kind of a little bit crazy. I decided to try running
for the first time ever. And of course I've run in school and run in the playground
and all those kind of things, but I never formally ran. I never put my headphones in and said, "Listen, Zach, you're gonna
go run five miles here." That just, I was like, who would do that? That sounds so boring. But I knew I needed to
do something drastic. I knew I needed a change. So for 30 days I would run no matter what, even if it sucked. I'm back. Woohoohoo. Oh my God, halfway through there, I thought I was gonna (buzzing) die. So I didn't throw up and
I came really close to it. Day one sucked. I found an old pair of running
shoes, some shorts, a shirt, and I downloaded the
first application I saw on the app store about running, and it was the Nike running app. And I opened it up and I saw
this amazing thing that said, "first run ever." And I was like, okay,
this is my first run. Let's try it out. And I remember as I was running along, some really nice guy in my ears
was saying, "You know what? "You hit start. "Fantastic job. "You are a winner for just hitting start. "You are a winner for just moving." And I thought, you know what? I like this guy. This running isn't so bad, but that was 30 seconds
into the first run ever. The next 30 seconds I realized that I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know how to run and my body just doesn't know what to do. What the guy in my ear didn't tell me was how much it would suck
after the first minute. It sucked. I was in awful shape. I mean, I was probably in the worst cardiovascular fitness of my life. In high school, I played
tennis and I swam. In college, I played soccer, but now I wasn't doing it. During this first ever run, I realized I might not
even make it five minutes. There was something wrong with my lungs. I couldn't get enough oxygen and my legs just wouldn't keep stepping one in front of the other. And I was like, "Listen,
guys, this is what, you know, "hundreds of thousands of years
of evolution told you to do. "Figure it out." But they wouldn't, they
wouldn't figure it out. And so five minutes into my
first run ever, I stopped. I didn't even complete half a mile. Disheartened but committed, I said, I'm gonna do
this, so I'm gonna do it. I put my shoes on again
for day number two, and, you know, I got
about 10 minutes into that before I quit again. Day number three, you
know, I put on my shoes, I put on my shirt that
was getting pretty smelly at one point and I made it past minute 15. But at minute 15 I saw the hill and I thought, why was I doing this? Why don't I just quit again? You know, I made it five minutes farther than I did the day before. That's progress. But I remember thinking,
why did I do this? You know, I want to be more healthy. I want to do something. I want to accomplish something. I want to finish this for me. I wanted to hear Coach
Bennett, the guy in my ear, congratulate me for finishing a run. So I looked up at that hill and I did it.
(text reverberates) And I wanna say some magical
power forced me up the hill, but no, it really just sucked. Every second of it sucked but I just kept pushing through. Coach Bennett helped me
a little bit in my ear, but really it was me saying, "You know, Zach, you just go up the hill. "It's just a hill. "What's so hard about it?" And I did it. I got to the top of the hill, And I was hoping for
some breakthrough moment, but no breakthrough moment came.
(clicking) The days kept on sucking and sucking and sucking and sucking. This running wasn't becoming fun like everyone told it would be. So that was, that was rough. I was on the elevator, I was
trying to take a iPhone video and I just, I couldn't do it
cause I just couldn't speak. That was one of the hardest, hardest runs I've ever done. But I noticed small things, like my cardiovascular
fitness was improving. I could walk up the stairs without getting out of
breath at the top of them, which before happened. I could go for walks with my parents and I wouldn't get out of breath at all. I would play the occasional soccer game or kick around with my little cousins or brothers or whatever, and I was fine. And at around day 20, something happened. I was running around
the edge of Philadelphia along this river near Philadelphia called the Delaware River, and I was about 20
minutes into a tough run and Coach Bennett in my ear suddenly said, "You know, Zach?" He didn't say Zach, but
he said, "You know what? "You're gonna run your
mile pace right now. "You're gonna run your mile pace." And I was like, no, no, no, I'm gassed, but whatever Coach Bennett says, I do. So he said, run your mile pace, and I did, and it really, really
sucked for 20 seconds. But 20 seconds into
going to this mile pace, I felt this weird kind of warm feeling at the center of my chest, and I was like, oh God, am
I gonna finally throw up? Am I gonna decorate the
streets of Philadelphia? But then before I knew it,
the feeling spread to my legs and to my arms and I was
smiling without realizing it and it felt like a really
just good, happy feeling. Every part of my body was buzzing and this was the runner's high. For the first time ever
since I started running, I was having fun running. I sprinted down the side of
Philadelphia and I was like, this is cool. I'm having fun on a run. And I was running at a pace
that I didn't think was possible with a feeling that I
didn't think was possible and a new appreciation of
what this thing can do. So I started to run a little bit faster, and I don't know if this
is the runner's high, but I just started to
feel like really happy and like I was smiling
when like no one was there. I probably looked like a
psycho, but I felt so good. And I ended that run thinking, you know, if this is what happens after
20 days of trying this out, I can't stop now. I can't stop at 30 days. I have to see what happens here. I bought new shoes, I bought new shirts, I bought new shorts. I tried Fartleks, I tried speed runs, I tried long runs, I tried mystery runs, I tried up and down runs. I tried exercise runs
where you did jumping jacks and pushups in the middle of runs. I tried everything.
(frames click) The runner's high kept
coming, but more importantly, I was seeing the joy, the power, the amazingness of running, and not because running
intrinsically is amazingly cool. It's because it showed me, you know, "Listen, Zach, if you put
your mind to something, "if you actually try to do
something and you stick to it, "you're disciplined, you can
do some pretty cool things." Day 30 hit me and I was
definitely not gonna stop. There was no way. I was a runner. After day 30, I found myself just on the occasional morning waking up, lacing up my new fancy Brooks shoes and just stepping out the door. And really that was the hardest thing, stepping out the door. I would be running along my favorite path along the Delaware River where I got that first ever
running high or running across one of the amazing bridges in Philadelphia and just having a good time. And this was now a habit. Winter arrived, snow,
ice, couldn't stop me. I bought Under Armour gear. I put on some fancy warm
gloves that would work when I touched my phone 'cause
they had fancy, you know, connecting to magnetic
whatever the heck on the gloves and I just ran no matter what. I was a runner. Over the next year, I was running
two to three times a week. My pace was improving and
my distance was improving and I was improving. I was discovering beautiful new parts of the city of Philadelphia
and the state of Pennsylvania that I didn't know existed. I was going on hikes, trail runs. I was making friends with new
people because of running, because of this cool thing. I would even run on vacation. I would bring shorts and shoes that were running shoes and shorts and I would put them in my backpack, and when I was in the hotel, the first thing I would
wake up in the morning is put on my shoes and go for a run. How amazing a feeling that is to discover a new
city like this, like running. (rustling) Another cool thing about running, I don't even know if this is allowed, but I'm just literally running
on a railroad right now. I think it's an old railroad. It's in Savannah, but I don't know. But you can you discover new places. I'm just running on a railroad. I think you, there's no train. (train whistles)
Oh my. (serious music)
(sobbing) And it's also cool
'cause you just wake up, you go for a run, you come back, you shower and you just feel great. Now, usually this is the part of the story where something would go wrong, and it is.
(dramatic music) When I was running no one ever
told me I looked super cool. No one even said I was
the next Usain Bolt. But no, there was no sucky part. There was no down tip to this story. It was just all great. Sure, the suck was there. There were sucky days. There were good days, but there
were definitely sucky days, but it didn't matter. It didn't matter because I was a runner and this is what runners do. They run through the suck. And the suck isn't even suck anymore. It's just part of the run. It's just part of what you
experience as a runner. Because if you run, and I mean, if you run at all, you are a runner. And if you exercise, if you play a sport, if you do anything outside to
challenge yourself physically, you're an athlete. And two years after I laced those shoes up for the first time, two years
after I met Coach Bennett, two years after I went up that hill, I am still a runner and I still love it. And as you can see, I'm even wearing running clothes right now because I was bringing this camera and all this gear out here 'cause it's just a
beautiful, beautiful park, but what better way to
experience the beautiful park than going for a run. And after I'm finished
talking to you guys, that's exactly what I'm gonna do. But I usually run two to
three times a week now, usually once that's on Tuesday morning, maybe that's a speed run,
once on Thursday morning, which is usually a shorter, easy run, and usually once on a Sunday,
which is a longer run. Occasionally I'll venture to
a new trail or see a new park or just go for a run with friends. And I just wanna briefly
talk about the major benefits that I've noticed from running. The first thing is cardiovascular fitness, and you would be surprised where this improved
cardiovascular fitness comes in. Of course I can run longer, of course I can go for
walks and do better. But lifting weights at the gym, I actually don't get tired as quickly. I used to think, it's because
my muscles are just tired. But no, there's some
cardiovascular fitness that plays a role when
you're lifting weights. So I was able to lift more
weights in the gym from running. But that improvement came
in the first 30 days. The more important improvement and the more powerful improvement and the whole reason I'm making this video is because of the other
changes that came two years after I started running. I have improved awareness of my thoughts. My mental toughness has skyrocketed. I have more discipline with waking up, studying, and working,
if you call it work, which is this YouTube channel. I get to hang out with other runners and now I know what
the word Fartlek means. But I wanna focus on the
mental toughness part for just a little bit because
it's such an important part of why running is amazing. I was on a particularly hard run one day on the scorching streets of Philadelphia and I was ready to quit. But Coach Bennett, as if
he magically read my mind, which he often does, said,
"You know what, listen. "Suck happens, but when suck happens, "when you push through the suck, "that's where change happens. "That's when you grow, that's
where you become stronger." And I thought, okay, if that's
where the change happens, I wanna make this run suck a lot. I like the suck. I want the suck. And then a couple days later,
I was listening to a podcast and I heard Jocko Willink on the podcast. If you don't know him,
he's this ex-Navy SEAL, badass, super, super cool guy. And he was saying when he
experiences something tough, when he sees something
tough, he thinks in his head, especially during a workout
or something like that, "Okay, so okay, it's tough." So the toughness doesn't matter. It's just, it's all in your head. You can push through it. He says, "You know what? It's just tough. "Okay. It's hard" Ever anything sucks, I like it.
(soldiers laugh) I like it. It's gonna make me tougher. It's gonna give me a good story to tell. I guess the one, two, three punch here was when I was listening to a podcast with Dr. Andrew Huberman, and he talked about dopamine
in this kind of cool way and especially dopamine when
you're doing something hard. And he said you can train your brain to actually release dopamine, release this kind of good
chemical, this motivating chemical when you're experiencing hard things, and you can even trick it. And you can say, "Listen,
okay, this is hard. "This is really hard, but you know what? "I'm enjoying the hard part. "I like the hard part. "I'm just one of those
people that enjoys the suck." And if you keep telling
yourself in your head, "This is hard, but I love it. "I love the hardness. "I love how painful it is. "I love pushing through it within reason," of course you can start to train yourself to enjoy the pain, to enjoy the struggle. I like the inability to breathe. I like it. And it kind of worked. It was like this feeling
of happiness and excitement and just a good feeling, almost
like I was tricking myself into getting the runner's high
when this was all going on. And now I love the pain.
I love the struggle. It's part of what makes me happy. It's part of where I get
enjoyment when I run. And here's the cool part, now
I can do this when I work out, when I study long hours,
when I'm doing anything hard. I can train myself to enjoy the struggle. I am actually enjoying the feeling of my legs being lit on fire. I'll tell you, this running thing, it can still get ya. It can definitely still get ya. I was feeling super, super confident and I was gonna go for
a really long run today, like a hour and a half run, 90-minute run. It's like day, I don't
know, like 130 run year, like year and a half into this, and it's, and sometimes it can be hard. Like, I thought I felt really, really good going into it, and then I was running and
my legs were kind of tired and I just didn't have
the normal motivation, the normal, like, good feelings
that I get from running. So I had to cut it short. It kind of sucked, but I still feel better than after I started. I mean, I felt really
good before I started, but I feel even better after I finished. Even though it wasn't
necessarily the best, most perfect run, it was still a toughie. Running is still, it
still gets me sometimes. Okay, but I'm still gonna do it. But this embrace the suck mindset was leaking into everything I did. It transformed me, it transformed my life. Waking up earlier, no problem. Pushing it just a little
bit harder in the gym, I like that. I like pushing it harder in the gym, staying a little bit
longer at the hospital, working a little bit extra
on a YouTube project. You know, that's who I am now. Running has made everything better for me. The health effects are great, sure, but the truly amazing thing, the truly fantastically powerful thing, the reason I am making this video is running has catalyzed
changes in my life that I never thought possible. Struggles will appear
everywhere in life, sure, but that's okay because I am a runner. What is the next hill I can climb? So running has bled in a good way into every single thing I do, and it's even bled into
my morning routine. And there are things I wish I knew before I finalized my morning routine. For example, if you aren't
doing certain things, you aren't optimizing
your circadian rhythm, which means you aren't optimizing the amazing molecular boost
you could get in the morning from cortisol, norepinephrine
and epinephrine, and this is something I
call the jumpstart trifecta. And these are just three
evidence-based techniques that I now do every single morning to make sure I'm at peak
performance when I wake up. And I explain these three
things and seven other things in an exclusive companion
video I have on Nebula. Also in a week or two,
I'll release my next video, which is called the Magic of Exercise, where I delve into the research
and the actual evidence to, is exercise actually worth it? Will it actually make us live longer? Does make us think better
or is it just all nonsense? But if you can't wait and
you actually wanna watch that next YouTube video
right now, you actually can because it's live right now on Nebula. And that's because I put
all my YouTube videos up two weeks early on Nebula. So if you sign up to Nebula
using my special link, first of all, you'll get
20% off using my link, so make sure you do that so
you can get the good deal. You'll also get access to my
exclusive companion videos, which are only ever gonna be on Nebula. You can see next week's YouTube video 'cause that's early and
already posted on Nebula, and you'll also get
access to my Nebula class on Studying Smarter, Not Harder 'cause that's included in
this whole Nebula deal. So head to nebula.tv/zachhighley or click on any of the links I'll put in a comment and
the description down below and you can see all that stuff right now. But thank you so much for watching and I'll see you on the next one. (gentle music) Look how pretty it is behind me, though. That is damn pretty.
