A column published in this space exactly a month ago, entitled “If you don’t sleep, don’t run”, generated more comments about a side issue addressed there — the (non) use of headphones — than the topic itself: the importance of sleep for physical activity.
Reader Carlos Lopes da Silva Filho considered my recommendation to deprive oneself of headphones, and not hours of sleep, to be a “controversial and lost phrase” as a “controversial and lost phrase”, if deprivation of something is necessary.
Gustavo Araújo highlighted his relationship with music: “I’ve been a runner for around 35 years and I say that when I started using headphones and MP3s — that’s two decades ago — the experience became much better. Everyone is different, as the poet said.”
Tiago Lopes Alcântara considered that this columnist was somehow trying to ban the use of the accessory: “I would like more context regarding the vehement ban on the use of headphones when running. It was very categorical, but without any explanation. What’s the deal?”
There was, some time ago, an edition of the Sorocaba marathon in which headphones were banned, and the controversy this aroused was great, which perhaps explains Alcântara’s reaction.
I do not advocate against the use of headphones when running, whether in parks or on the street, even when you have to cross intersections. Perhaps only when we occupy the space of bicycles on the cycle paths, which become the car of the moment there, is it worth straining our ears to hear the whistle, the honk (or the swearing).
What I advocate is taking advantage of a bonus that running gives, or can give: cognitive relaxation. We spend our many waking hours compulsively clicking on screens, abandoning habits that until the day before yesterday were much more common, such as reading or simply sitting idle on a park bench. The iPhone, it is worth remembering, has not yet completed 20 years of existence.
When you run and play a playlist or podcast in your head, you necessarily have to focus on those songs or that information you are listening to. Note: when other perceptions take center stage, in a sudden change of direction or speed, for example, the music disappears like magic.
I myself, the few times I ran with an old iPod, remember “missing” some soundtracks, not remembering having heard them after the gravel, most likely because other more important situations at that moment captured my attention.
Spaces for total relaxation are becoming increasingly rare. I highly recommend meditation, and, in fact, trying to feel the change in temperature in the air that enters and exits your nostrils is a remarkable anchor for not getting carried away by the current of random thoughts that prevent us from relaxing and meditating – mantras like the old “on” are also very effective. Swimming is also, as far as I know, a sport that requires total concentration underwater.
Running can also be this digital detox space. Even when Strokes or Elgar’s “Pomp and Circumstance” can help you cover another two or three kilometers, it’s worth trying to unplug.
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