Together these were catalysts for a big change: Saremi quit her content development job at a startup to go back to school to be a therapist.At the University of California, Los Angeles, she studied links between exercise and mental health, and had an epiphany: Why not combine therapy and running to amplify their benefits?After joining a private practice in 2014, Saremi tested her “running therapy” theory. She held al-fresco, on-the-go sessions that allowed patients to get outside and move, but more important, helped them to open up.
“Running is nonthreatening and comfortable for people,” says Saremi, who is also an RRCA-certified running coach. “It’s much easier to do than sitting on a sofa with somebody that you just met.”
Today, the 33-year-old has her own practice—Run Walk Talk—in Redondo Beach, and about 25 percent of her patients are therapy runners. Sessions include a 10-minute warmup, 30 to 40 minutes of running, and a 10-minute cooldown.
There’s no hard science that says running therapy is more effective than the couch; still, Saremi suspects neurochemicals released during exercise play a factor. “Endorphins can help you tolerate physical pain—and it may be a similar effect with emotional pain as well,” Saremi says.
And she isn’t the only therapist seeing results with the unconventional treatment. Other California-based practices have implemented similar methods, and see the act of running as a metaphor for emotional progress.
“We’re literally moving forward,” says Emma Bennett, a California-based therapist who provides running therapy to mothers. “We’re engaging in motion that feels productive and powerful.”
Moving forward is important to Saremi, too. With her practice off the ground, she hopes to develop a certification process for running therapists and implement it across the country.
“There are people who would never in a million years sit on a therapist’s couch,” she says, ”but they would consider running therapy.”
