Ask Dr. Dumb: Will Jogging Fill Me With Rage?
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Friends, I am so angry right now that I can hardly see straight. I am shaking with rage. My fury is such that I am this close to picking up my wireless keyboard, walking out the door, and smashing it in the face of the first person who says, “Hey, what are you doing out here with a wireless keyboard?”
I’m like this most days.
Why? Well, I mean… THIS [gesturing wildly at literally everything]. Also, it turns out, because I’m a runner, and apparently running makes people angry. That’s according to an article in the UK’s “Daily Mail” on a study published in the journal “Clinical Psychology Review.”
To help us understand this, I turned to Dumb Runner’s go-to expert on British media and bulging forehead veins, Dr. Dumb.
Dumb Runner: Doctor, thank you for joining us once again.
Dr. Dumb: Up yours, asshole!
What?
Sorry. Just got back from a run.
That’s a great segue to today’s topic! Can you give us the gist of this article?
Sure. The gist is that the Daily Mail kind of sucks, and routinely publishes dumb takes on stuff like this, in which they start with a legit bit of news and twist it into something it’s not for the sake of a clickbait headline. For instance, one that includes the phrase “Run rage!”
I guess it works, because here we are.
Here we are.
In this case, the legit bit of news is an actual study, correct?
Actually it’s a “meta-analytic review,” but yes. It looked at the best ways to decrease anger and aggression, and determined that “arousal-decreasing activities” like deep breathing, meditation, and certain types of yoga are more effective than activities that increase arousal. Jogging, in particular, was found likely to increase anger.
Wait. Do the researchers use jogging and running interchangeably?
They do. Which, right there, makes me angry.
And do they explore why going for a run or a jog might cause anger? Such as, I dunno, drivers who turn right without looking right or who are more interested in their phones than in watching for pedestrians or who are driving enormous trucks and SUVs with terrible blind spots and tall, flat grills that are more likely than normal front ends to kill pedestrians or who are hidden behind tinted windows, making eye contact impossible or who themselves are full of rage? Or some combination of the above?
They do not.
Huh.
Instead they suggest that jogging makes people angry because it’s boring.
Will articles like the one in the Daily Mail be used by the same sorts of people who mention Jim Fixx when declaring that running is “bad for you”?
It’s funny you should mention that, because the Daily Mail article itself mentions Jim Fixx. In the second paragraph:
Doctor, thanks again for your time. I think I’m going to go for a walk with my wireless keyboard.
Have fun.
Up yours!
Same to you.
