Recreation versus Perspiration: An Epiphany

For years now, I have been hearing rumors about this suspicious E-word. How it makes you all tingly and relaxed. How it's the perfect stress-reliever after an intense work week. How it makes you feel happy and healthy and sexy. But I'd never actually experienced endorphins for myself until I became unemployed. I guess you could say I've always been an endorphins orphan.

I'm well-acquainted with natural highs, including those associated with shopping, chocolate, or a great conversation with a girlfriend. But I have always been nothing but suspicious of those glowing gym girls who would stroll out all gazelle-like with their yoga mats and their tube tops, raving about how "invigorated" they felt. Exercise either made me grumpy, gaspy and red-faced, or simply nonplussed.

Then I started doing the Jillian Michaels "Banish Fat, Boost Metabolism" workout on OnDemand, and lo and behold my E-phinany came. The age-old adage "no pain, no gain" was exactly applicable to my situation. I never experienced the swooping zen sensation of endorphins because I never sweat hard enough to warrant the payoff. And I didn't realize how much I was shortchanging myself, not just physically, but mentally as well.

Once you really start to push yourself in your workout, all the stress of the day finally, blessedly recedes to the back of your mind. I really genuinely did not know this, and I am 27 years old. I've been contenting myself with latte-slurping Greenlake power walks in the name of "exercise," not realizing sweet blessed mental obliteration could be mine with just a good solid kickboxing combo. And as all unemployed people know, any relief from the endless hamster wheel of anxiety and doubt and "what-ifs" is purely incredible, a drink of sweet nirvana water.

Unlike with Greenlake power walking or my other token forms of exercise, the Jillian Michaels workout pushes me into a sweat that is pure sanctuary, a hollowed out place where this is no craigslist ads or mounting bills or endless hours staring in the dark. I am not thinking about anything, or anyone but the sound and movement of my own body, of my pumping heart and gasping breath, working against my own best time. And when I go into that cobra pose at the end of that killer workout, I am calm, cool, and chalkfull of endorphins. At this point in my life, there is no better gift. Thanks, sweat.