What are the benefits of running to work? Being fitter and sleeping better are just two of them

On the Tube early in the morning, a few feet underground, it is the tuts and the sighs that I can’t stand. In New York, people swear. In Paris, they stare. Really stare. But in London, at rush hour, we tut and sigh – at everything.

Someone’s backpack brushing against your chest. The driver announcing that you and your fellow sardines will be ‘evening out the gaps in the service’ for a few minutes. The destination of your Circle line train changing moments before its arrival. Tut, sigh, tut, sigh.

See also: Gen Z could be driving London’s running boom

Having to get the Tube in the morning is the thing I like least about not being able to run any more. Last August I sustained an injury.

I won’t go into specifics because it involves my groin and football, which are two subjects I have no intention of ever writing about.

But it has meant that I can only run on treadmills, whereas before I used to run everywhere. And I mean everywhere. I have just been informed that when I first came in to be interviewed at ES, the acting editor at the time came back and, after laughing at my exorbitant salary demands (and probably my hair), told everyone: “He just runs … everywhere. Like, he knows all these places to shower and get changed all over London, and he just runs everywhere.”

This is true. And though I – temporarily, I hope – cannot run to work, I honestly can’t recommend enough running to work, to your friend’s house or to wherever you may be going.

Avoiding the Tube is the most obvious of many benefits. You will save money. You will get your cardiovascular nonsense out of the way. And then there are the parks.

London has the best parks in the world and there is no better time to experience them than at 8.30am on a Tuesday, with only career coke-heads and elderly dog-walkers for company.

But even on the street you will learn things about London, find new, little, not-on-the-internet shops and feel fantastic about living in this city.

Where cycling is, to borrow a line from Bruce Springsteen’s timeless anthem Born to Run, “a death trap, it’s a suicide rap”, what you are about to embark on is a safe daily voyage of discovery.

You will of course need a multi-club gym membership to rinse off at the other end but there are so many of these on offer now: even one of the posh ones with free towels and Molton Brown shower gel will set you back less than a monthly travelcard. You will need Citymapper. You will need a voluminous backpack.

In fact the only downside to running everywhere is that you will lug said voluminous backpack, stuffed with sweaty kit, to every pub, disco and after-after-party that you end up at after work. But there are cloakrooms. And, even better, the possibility that you might just make a bag thief throw up.

What you won’t need, if you stick with it, is music. Music, your own music, in the gym is essential to drown out the dull whirr of dozens of treadmills and the execrable thud of Tiësto.

But after a month or so, music in the open air is unnecessary. Music is to open-air running what béarnaise sauce is to steak, Viagra is to sex or ticking time bombs are to Luther plotlines: sort of cheating, and deployable only in a “break glass in case of emergency” kind of a way (such as when you are hungover). You don’t need a soundtrack.

The city in which you live is now your soundtrack. The birds and the beeps, the split-second snippets of conversation and, if you really listen, the tuts and the sighs of the schmucks you have left behind.

As well as experiencing London in a whole new way, the benefits of running are far-reaching. Running improves cardiovascular health, meaning you are less likely to suffer from heart disease, stroke and other cardiovascular problems. It also builds strength in muscles and bones, and improves metabolism and endurance.

Many people also experienced improved moods as a result of running and reduced symptoms related to anxiety and depression.

Studies showed that running regularly can improve cognitive function and help people to get more sleep.

There is a reason why so many runners tout running as a life-changing exercise, so why not switch up your commute to one powered by your own two feet?