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THF syndrome, Endorphins and lost concentration.
Have you ever felt your concentration has gone missing at some point in the game? Is it hard to remember the score or recall your match strategies?
The neurophysiology of the brain can work against you. A quick look at some new research shows how this happens.
Firstly, Endorphins and Altered States
For decades popular culture believed that endorphins were responsible for the “Runners high”. Endorphins are a group of naturally occurring morphine like substances that circulate throughout your blood stream in high doses when you exercise. They have pain killing properties just like the morphine your dentist uses prior to a filling or tooth extract or root canal – nice morphine means no pain.
Same with exercise – work hard and the endorphins start to circulate and take away the pain.
So everybody thought that’s how runners high is achieved, the endorphins would kick in and if you exercised hard enough or long enough you would start to feel no pain and your performance would be great.
But then scientists discovered a glitch in the theory: Endorphins cannot pass through the blood brain barrier – a clever chemical trick of the human body which locks out any potential harmful chemicals and prevents them entering the brain. Endorphins were just too big to pass through.
However the continued explorations of modern science reversed our thinking yet again: as late as 2008 scientists discovered that a special class of endorphins [beta endorphins] already exist in the brain and also get released during exercise. So yes it was possible that these brain endorphins were responsible for creating the euphoric feelings experienced by athletes in all sports.
But wait, there’s more.
Latest research: Endocannanaboids and Transient Hypofrontality
Let’s call it the THF syndrome.
The latest scientific research indicates another possible brain system which can produce similar results to the endorphins. This is all very new and involves some fairly complex neurochemistry and brain physiology. For our purposes you don’t need to know all of the neurochemistry stuff that is being explored in the research labs around the world.
Here are the central issues:
The Endocannanaboid system (let’s call it the “Eboid” system) has chemical receptors in your brain, particularly in your frontal cortex and your cerebellum. During exercise Eboids increase in your blood circulation throughout your body and your brain in a similar way to what the Endorphins do.
The Eboids have similar effects to endorphins and also provide similar effects to that illegal drug marijuana: They sedate you, decrease your anxiety, change your perception of your surrounds, put you into a sleepy but wide awake state where everything feels good without pain.
This all sounds like the runners high and the scientists now think the reports by athletes about feeling “high” during prolonged exercise are explained by the newly found central “brain Endorphins” in conjunction with the effects of “Eboids”.
But the Eboids have a sedating effect on the front part of your brain called the prefrontal cortex (which we shall refer to simply as the cortex). Your concentration and working memory and ability to learn new movements decrease dramatically. Not so good!
This is called Transient Hypofrontality, meaning for a short period of time your frontal cortex decreases its activity, hence “hypo meaning “under active”. We’ll call this the THF syndrome or just THF. The bad news is the effect on your ability to maintain attention (read concentration) on task relevant parameters and recall items stored in your memory such as an observation about your opponents play or a strategy you designed before the match started.
So the runners high probably exists but it may not be useful.
Read the Hot Topic on “Flow – do you really want it?”.