Welcome to Running: A FEVER. My name is Michael Davis, and this is a podcast about fitness, diet, and medicine. My goal is to live a long, healthy, happy, active life right up to the very end. I love my life enough to make it last as long as possible. If you feel the same way, you’re in the right place.

Back in the old days, I took one night and had a unique experience. I went to the demolition derby, which comes to my town every spring and fall. I had never experienced anything like it and haven’t since. I haven’t returned to another one for some reason, though it was a lot of fun.

I spend a lot of my time doing things familiar to me—the type of exercise I do, the foods I prepare and eat, and many more. When I go somewhere I’ve been before, I take the same route every time. Sometimes, it’s because it feels good, like all the vacations I’ve spent at Mt. Nebo State Park, where I recently went for the fifth time. Sometimes, it’s because I don’t have to think about it. And that’s what I’m here to talk about today.

Recently, a friend said he was trying to avoid traffic as he was going to work and decided to take a different route. Instead of the lights, gas stations, bus stops, schools, and shopping centers he usually sees on his way to his place of employment, he saw a back road with a one-lane bridge. He thought that was a pleasant experience. And it didn’t take much more time, if any, than his average bout with city traffic.

Doing things a little differently and going for new experiences is good for our brains, which are like muscles, after all. The more different things we experience, the better we think. That’s why they say, “Variety is the spice of life,” “Change is as good as rest,” and so on. The trip to the demolition derby was something different for me, and it did me good. I wonder what else I can do to put variety in my life and what changes can add spice to it. I look forward to finding out.

If you have some experiences you’d like to share, please enter them in the comments to this episode on YouTube or the blog post at RunningAFEVER.com/344.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this episode. As always, if you’ve got the fever, keep it burning, and if not, catch it, and I’ll talk to you next time on Running: A FEVER.