My friends are extraordinary people. The people I’m attracted to are very driven and highly intelligent (and perhaps more than a little neurotic). The majority of them are also passionate about exercise.

“Exercise” is maybe too mild a term for this group: they are athletes devoted to a sport (either professionally or as committed amateurs), or they are coaches who are as relentless about training themselves as they are their students. To a person, they freely admit that this activity is essential for their mental well-being.

And while I believe that their lives are very stressful, they handle stress remarkably well. They seem to be very resilient when bad stuff happens to them. This is an anecdotal observation on my part, but it interested me enough to go read about the effects of exercise on the brain. Here’s what I found:
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