Christopher Ryan Doesn't "Get After It" | Joe Rogan

I think that's what life is, basically, in a nutshell. It's an analogy. Like, we're always worried about things. We spend so much time worrying about things, most of which never occur. Yeah. You know, and even the ones that do occur, it's like, wow, whatever. Like, death. You know, what is... I'm not worried about death. Dying, maybe, if it takes too long. But if it takes like an hour or a day to die, that's a tiny fraction of your life. Who gives a shit? You're not a guy that really spends a lot of time working on fitness or health or, you know... That's a nice way to put it. Well, you enjoyed that article that I wrote back in the day. Lazy fuck is what you're trying to say. I wasn't going to say that, man. I love you. I take it as a compliment. You enjoyed... I've got better things to do than work out, Joe. I get it. You enjoyed that article that I wrote a long time ago about... I did. The sand. Yeah, human body's like a sandcastle. Yeah, yeah. You can make it beautiful, but it's not going to last. Yeah. And you know that going in, you know that way. Yeah. And I mean, I've got this idea for a book, if I keep writing books, which is sort of a self-help book, but it's a parody of self-help books. And so it'll be calling attention to the way so much of what we do to try to be healthy is actually counterproductive because we stress, especially Americans. Everything's work, you know? Sure. Everything turns into work. And Americans are very suspicious of pleasure. We're taught that pleasure is evil and dangerous and all this. I've never bought that line of reasoning. I've always felt like what feels good generally is good. There's a reason it feels good, you know? Now, that can get corrupted by advertising and false messaging from a sick society that tells you, you know, sit on the sofa and drink beer and eat bags of chips all day. But if you get beyond that and you can actually hear the voice of your body, I think if your body is telling you to, you know, stay in bed because it's a rainy, cold day. Now, I know this is totally against your perspective on life, where you're like, you got to tame the inner bitch. You got to get out of bed. You got to work out. It doesn't matter. I'm like, no, man, I'm staying in bed. Like, you go do what you need to do. I used to climb mountains with this friend of mine in Spain, and he was like you. He was a fucking billy goat. He'd like go up the... And I'd go with him till I got to a nice spot with a nice view. And he'd be like, dude, I'll be here when you come down. I'm taking a nap. Got a bottle of wine and some cheese. I appreciate that too. I'm not married to my perspective, but I think I have a very peculiar biology that demands a certain amount of exertion. Yeah, sure. And I have friends like that. I mean, you know, lots of friends are like, man, if I don't run every day, I feel like shit. I'm like... Running's very addictive though. I feel fine. Yeah, you get used to it. There's a high that you get from running that's really interesting. And any long-term cardiovascular exercise, you get this. It's like we did, you know, last October, we did the sober October thing where we had this crazy fitness challenge. So all of us were doing cardio like five hours a day. Really crazy amounts of cardio. And one of the things that Tom Segura and I both agreed on is like, the amount of internal chatter dissipates to zero. Like, you have no anxiety. It goes, I didn't realize I had any anxiety until that happened. And then I was like, God, it goes to zero. It goes to nothing. Like, when you do like five hours on a treadmill or you're just running, when it's done, man, there's this like peace of mind that comes with that, this release of endorphins that's incredibly addictive because that feeling is so pleasing. So it's not that it doesn't feel good to get out of bed and to just push when you don't want to, but the end result feels amazing. It does feel really good. So I wonder if there's any research looking into whether that effect happens universally. Because I've worked out, I've run, there were times in my life, I've never gotten a runner's high. Never. I get my teeth hurt, my knees hurt, my back hurts, I feel my brain bouncing around in my skull. You know, I'm half a mile into it and I'm like, fuck this. This doesn't feel good. You have to get in shape first. That's a big part of it. It's not that simple. It's like, for me, I never really got into running. Like, the first time I really did any serious running, my friend Cam Haynes had a 5K, which is, what is that, three miles? Something like that? Something like that, yeah. And I didn't run at all in preparation for it. And when I ran the 5K, I was like, Jesus, crisis is hard. Like, I didn't have, there was no good feeling at all. You know, it's running on concrete and shit. In Vegas, it's gross. In Vegas. Smelling sin in the air. But when it was over, I was like, okay, obviously, I'm in good shape, but not in good running shape at all, so I should probably get in shape for this. So then I started running. And then when I got into running, particularly running hills, then I started feeling it once I kind of got in that kind of shape. And then when the workouts are over, like, I run all the time now. And when it's over, I just have this, ah. Yeah, you and Marshall are doing your thing. It's great. Yeah, fucking, and he loves it too. It's a crazy bonding experience with that dog, you know, because he loves it, you know. I got my dad a golden retriever. They're the best dogs. Years ago when my dad was like, you know, maybe it's genetic because he was pretty lazy. He'd come home from work and he'd sit in front of the TV and drink vodka and get upset about the news. And my mother didn't like dogs, but my sister and I convinced her that dad needs a dog because dad will get this dog and he'll go for walks because the dog needs to walk. And so we got him a golden retriever. He named it Stoli. Bad sign right there. And then he never went for walks. Stoli just sat next to him and got fat. Oh, poor Stoli. I know, I know. Well, it's common. Doesn't always work. No. Yeah, it helps me get going because I know that he needs exercise. Yeah. It does, but it helps me too. And it's fun. Like I talk to him when we run, you know, I guess we're running, you know, I have a little conversations with him. Yeah, cool. Fun. He's not judging you, right? Pretty of a fuck. I could be fat. I could cover and shit. He wouldn't give me... He'd probably prefer that. He'd rule around. It's making it more interesting. Yeah. But the runner's high is a real thing. But you have to achieve some level of fitness before I think it kicks in.