Agreed, though the article lays it on a little thick.. Daily, 7 days per week walking (4+ miles) has definitely improved my physical and mental health. Got me through a bout of anxiety/panic attacks as well.
Highly recommend it.
How do you fit this onto your life? Do you do one long walk in the morning or split it into smaller walks throughout the day? Is it the same each day or different? Do you vary your routes?
I read a quote once that basically says, if it’s important you will make time for it. A 4 mile walk can be completed in a little over an hour. The question isn’t how do you make time, it’s more, what am I going to give up to walk?
One of the things you discover with some exercise is how many hours in the day you need for extra sleep or coping mechanisms.
When I first started exercising (again) the amount of sleep I needed to function went down by over an hour more than I spent in class, so the class netted me time.
Now that I’m trying to work up to serious walking distance, it has replaces some time I spent in front of the TV, and reduced the amount of time I need to spend on other recharging activities like gardening.
As a keyboard warrior spending hours sitting in front of the computer, I was having back pain issues and gaining weight every year.
This summer I decided to tackle the root cause, so I started doing daily walks during my yearly vacation (about six months ago). Most walks were short (30min), and some took a couple of hours because I was visiting friends/family/local events, going for small groceries, ...
If it was less than 10km/(~ 7 miles), I had the time and the weather was reasonable, I walked.
I was convinced I would have to walk a lot in bad weather, but this turned out not to be the case: in the morning I check my calendar and the weather for that day, and mentally mark a few opportunity windows to go for a walk.
After doing this, the biggest task is getting up and putting on my waking shoes and coat (and chest light when it can get dark) when the time is there. Once I do get out the door, I usually have to force myself not to walk further than I initially planned.
In the beginning 30 minutes felt like a long walk. When I go for a walk now, it feels like I'm only beginning to get in the flow after 30 minutes. I do have a fixed route for my brisk walks that I tend to do during weekdays, which is a little over 6km and now takes at most an hour. (It used to take way longer when I started, so there's progress there as well.)
I tend to go for bigger walks during the weekends, or as a "reward" when I close a big deal/wrap up a big task...
So what did I do with all that time before I went for these walks? A lot of it was mostly feeling productive/creative: browsing around on the internet, noodling at the piano/guitar, watching TV or doing a gazillion small things. Turns out having a fixed walking window where I let my mind wander is way better for me personally: I tend to come home with at least one insight, doing a lot of "gedankenexperiments" (thought experiments) and come back more zen.
Next to this it's also improving my physique slowly but gradually. I keep close track of my progress via a smartwatch, because I'm an IT guy after all, and love tracking progress...
All things considered, it took a few weeks/months to build this habit, but in the end it was
all about starting small and building up gradually, stacking up one little habit on top of the other as time progressed.
Over the last fortnight I have been unable to go for walks due to a medical procedure, and I missed my daily walks a lot. Thankfully I'm now able to slowly reboot the habit, and I don't plan on stopping with these walks anytime soon.
I was doing 2x 2-3 mile walks throughout the day, but switched to and prefer a single walk now, seems to reset me better. Route is same for while, but varies once I get bored after some weeks or months of seeing same thing.
Where do people live where going outside for a walk for an hour is that dangerous? I'm pretty sure even if you lived in a super high crime rate area you could still find times to go outside for a walk during the day. Unless we're talking about extreme scenarios like living in an active war-zone.
I’ve never seen a city that doesn’t have some way to go on walks.
All the terrible unwalkable cities in the US are called that because you can’t actually walk to anything useful. In other words, those cities that require a car to do errands, go shopping, get to work, go to school, etc.
But for exercise—walking for walking’s sake—it’s usually doable. It is nice if you can get the walking “for free” by combining it with ordinary life, though
There are no sidewalks in my parents' suburban neighborhood. You just walk among the houses, and there is nowhere to go. It's no surprise that we spent our childhoods at the mall.
These dead neighborhoods are connected by high traffic roads, also with no sidewalks, each more boring than the last, each loud and dangerous.
In Germany, wherever you go, there are little paths. They go along fields and streams, between houses, from park to park. It's easy to find a pleasant place to walk from your home. It's something I dearly miss when I visit the home country.
It’s not just about being attacked. It’s just there’s no pedestrian infrastructure. Or it’s all in shambles. Or you constantly have to leave the broken or slippery sidewalk and walk through cars.
Manila is such a place. I love walking every day. I really tried to walk there and it’s… hard.
I love walking, and having lived in cities that make it difficult and frustrating I noticed some ways that make it engaging and motivate me to do it anyway.
Frustrating points about walking for me include poor road layout (e.g., to get anywhere from your neighbourhood you must first walk to basically-a-highway then walk alongside it for a time), poor air quality, noise from traffic, reckless rule-breaking drivers, missing sidewalks, stray dogs, etc.
— I find places to go. Find places you want to visit for whatever reason, maybe to grab some food or coffee, to sit and read or people-watch, and alternate between them. I don’t like repetitive exercise without any other purpose than exercise itself so I don’t just walk—I am getting somewhere. (Sometimes I don’t have a specific place in mind but I know there’ll be something I need in the general direction, like coffee. This method generally requires a denser urban area to work.)
— Shoes without heel support made a significant difference to my walking routine. They force me to land every step similarly to how I would do it if I were barefoot, not right on the heel like cushioned sneakers teach us. That combined with keeping neck and extremities relaxed at the same time really makes my body remember that there’s such a thing as abs, because suddenly every step engages abs. Maintaining this form is also a bit challenging, mentally more so than otherwise. As a result, even though I may be going somewhere, I walk more slowly and I feel better about the process.
— I monitor air quality with AirVisual; when it’s green it’s a motivating factor to get fresh air (what if tomorrow it changes to orange/red for a week, and I will want to enjoy a walk… better do it while I can).
— Carrying a camera and taking photos when I feel like it makes me more attentive to my surroundings. Some say always having a camera means I don’t live in the moment, but I suspect this hobby instead helps with that. It also requires walking to see new scenes worth photographing, even bicycling doesn’t work so well.
— Noise-canceling headphones address noise pollution, plus walking is probably the best time to listen to an audiobook or a podcast if not music.
These all help me get into the right state of mind and cope with frustrations.
Mostly unsolved problems:
— Reckless drivers. I find the only way to deal with this is to either submit or to put yourself in danger. The former can ruin your day and the latter obviously can’t be recommended. In some cities making yourself more noticeable (if you don’t naturally stand out then through high visibility clothing) may actually reduce the danger enough, but it wouldn’t help say in Seoul where they speed through red lights barely noticing anything (thankfully however in Seoul you can route your walk mostly away from wider roads or bridges where this happens).
— Heat is a problem depending on the latitude, if I don’t wake up early enough I may be demotivated to go out that day.
— Combined with all other frustrations, suburban-like sparsely populated environment tips the scales for me. I never could really enjoy walking in Chiang Mai for example, it’s boring and the probability of encountering a pack of stray dogs is bothersome.
It's cars. Rural america is not walkable unless you live near nature trails. You're walking on roads with no shoulder and people happy to run you over.
Rural America is a) not nice to trespassers(and you're bound to walk on private land if you're off the main streets) and b) is even more car dependent than urban areas, so human or animal paths usually don't exist.
Sure, but you'll run into rural people that will just chase you off with a shotgun instead of calling their lawyer and once you've had that experience once, its enough. Ahmaud Arbery is a tragedy that paints this picture pretty well.
There are so few paths there! Germany has layers of paths wherever you look, but they're suspiciously absent from Canadian cities.
In many places, you'd be walking directly on a road with fast vehicles that don't expect pedestrians there. Look up "stroads" and you'll understand why it sucks to walk in North America.
Safety is not just safe "from attack". It's also safe from traffic, safe from breathing in drastically worse air outside compared to inside, safe from the elements, etc. etc.
I am living in Canada. It's winter and it is wet. Going outside means a 5 min ritual of changing into outside clothes (because it is wet) and wearing boots, walking and doing the reverse 5 min ritual.
I got a forcing-function: the stereotypical pandemic dog. If he doesn’t get his walk, he will do his business in the house. I literally just came back soaked from my daily one hour walk (I was too optimistic about the weather).
I live in a retirement community. Nowadays since I can no longer swim (see reply here elsewhere) I pace (very slowly) up and down a long hall. I feel like a monk walking a cloister.
You literally argue with child half an hour daily or the the child never leave the house? You don't take the child to playground or just to move about?
Just get a treadmill. Not as pleasant as walking in nature, among trees, or by a lake.
But beats walking in a crowded city or having to cross roads anyday.
I live in a place where it is too hot, and only time people can go on walks is dawn/pre-morning. As a night owl, I cannot do that. So I bought a treadmill.
It has been great for me and has served me really well.
The cognitive benefits mentioned in the article and what many of us know, you can derive that from treadmill walking. I can attest to that.
Great if that works for you, absolutely didn't work for me. We had one, and it was a soul destroyingly mind-numbing activity, second only to swimming laps. Rather than helping the mental state, it just left me angry at wasting time without any "letting your mind wander" external stimuli every single time.
Does walking on a treadmill replicate the effects? Or is the slowly changing scenery and physical sensation of moving through/to somewhere a major part in the positive effects?
I think physically it would be similar, but mentally it would not be the same. the act of going from a place to a new place is the real joy of walking because you observe as you go.
I use a treadmill desk and am a big fan.
It's nice to walk for a few hours a day while on the computer.
Stephen Wolfram takes this up another level by also walking outside for a while in nature with a laptop holder[0]. Anecdotally, he reports having a lower heart rate on days he does this.
>The results indicate that treadmill walking improves spatial and temporal gait characteristics more effectively than walking outdoors.
At least in this study it seems better than walking outdoors for stroke victims. A lot of recent studies about the benefits of sunshine would lean me towards that way, but a treadmill is still super!
I walk frequently and it truly makes most problems less so. I love taking long walks across my city. Usually a couple of times a year I will leave in the morning and go for a walk until late at night. Sometimes 12 hours.
Not from walking, but I discovered in college a downside when I went for a run after a midterm or final exam.
During the run, my mind would wander, and I would start going over some of the questions/problems from the just-completed midterm/final.
To my horror, my mind would discover the correct answer for a specific question which didn't match my response or realize that my given answer had a glaring flaw which meant there was no way I could have answered the question/problem correctly.
The midterm/final was already completed. I couldn't go back in time and correct my answer. I was stuck in a hot burning purgatory, finishing a run with my mind fixated on my incorrect answer. I couldn't un-think the error.
Once I finished the run, I'd go over the problem in my room again only to confirm my error. Then I had to wait for the results from the midterm/final to come face to face with the fact that the prof/TA had agreed that I had erred.
This happened a couple of times before I realized the nasty game my mind was playing on me. It was like PTSD - I avoided going for a run immediately after a midterm/final, afraid of what errors my mind might reveal to me. Ignorance is bliss in this case.
Finally learned to let the emotions go. What's done is done, can't do anythng about the past.
I get bored while walking/running, and can only do it while having music on (running) or have a podcast/audiobook (walking).
Music doesn't really mess with your mind going somewhere.
And you can discover connections and have other insights while listening to a podcast or an audiobook.
Try listening to an audiobook while sitting and doing nothing or doing chores versus listening to it while walking. You will gain more cognitively if you listen to it while walking. Speaking from personal experience.
Motivating yes, but possibly also allowing you to overdo it by checking out.
I say you’re both right. While building a habit, audiobooks help a lot. When trying to set goals, music is better (tempo) but for the mental health aspects, like nature bathing, touching grass, and meditation, eventually you want nothing in your ears more often than not.
But only after you’re confident you’ll actually show up for the exercise, distractions or no.
Audiobooks are a great way to get through books you feel you should have read but can’t seem to get into.
If you can find a route with long stretches that don't have a ton of intersections or cars buzzing you, it can. I've done a lot of both activities. Cycling burns a lot more calories, and you can get further away from home, but walking is generally more meditative.
In theory, cycling could be comparable, but in practice I find it worse (and I spent 10+ years riding ~10 hours per week). With road cycling, you spend a lot of time riding on roads that are extremely unpleasant to share with cars which is quite stressful. With mountain biking, you need to live near good trails or either you have the same sharing the road problem as road cycling but worse because mtbs suck on the road or you have to drive which adds a lot of overhead. Plus I find wearing walking clothes a lot nicer than lycra, which is basically necessary for long rides.
From a similar view, the book, "Spark: How Exercise will improve your performance by Dr. John Ratey" has other benefits of exercising:
1. Exercise is better than Zoloft in treating depression
2. Students with higher fitness scores also have higher test scores
3. People learn vocabulary words 20 percent faster following exercise than they did before exercise
4. A massive Dutch study of 19,288 twins and their families published in 2006 showed that exercisers are less anxious, less depressed, less neurotic, and also more socially outgoing.
5. A study in London in 2004 showed that even ten minutes of exercise could blunt an alcoholic’s craving.
Excellent book. I read it a long time ago. I’m sure if their was an update their would be even more studies showing the massive benefits of exercise on all aspects of life.
I have no doubt that exercise is good for you, but I'm extremely skeptical about these kind of books. I haven't read this one specifically but from your description it fits this archetype of pop-science books that cite studies as proof. But studies, especially these kinds of studies, are no proof. It sounds like a huge collection of selection-bias based experiments, which already suffer from selection bias due to the academic system, spun into a narrative to sell a book to the general clueless population.
Again, I'm sure exercise is great for you (how could it be bad?), but given how difficult it is to get replication in these types of studies I wouldn't trust any of the specific results... I'd bet lots of money that, for example, "People learn vocabulary words 20 percent faster" is complete BS and not replicable.
The effect is explained by the increase in cerebral blood flow as opposed to sitting. I myself have experienced it. If you have a goal involving something creative, try walking for 20-30 minutes at a good pace before you attempt it. You’ll notice the difference in energy, germination of ideas, and attention and focus. It works.
I wouldn't doubt that the specifics are incorrect, but the general picture is good. As a chess player, I can tell you I feel the difference between days I work out and days I don't.
I'm completely over self-help books now. Why pay $20 to be taught that water is wet in 200+ pages. Exercise is good, drinking water is good, sleep is good, et cetera. The exact percentage doesn't really matter.
You can think of self-help books as stocks and you are a venture capitalist. So books may contain zero value and add no benefits to your life, while others might provide information and advice that presents you with new information that adds thousand or even millions of dollars to your life. The winners pay for the losers. Valuable insights I have gotten from reading self help books:
1. The frequency of a habit matters more for the development of a habit than the intensity. My chess coaching motto came from this book: "Consistency over Intensity"[1]
2. Most people are deficient in magnesium. Magnesium is considered the anti-stress mineral. A central symptom of the deficiency is insomnia. Personally, I started taking 250mg of magnesium supplement daily. [2]
3. Similarly, to the fight-or-flight response, there is pause-and-plan response. Your willpower can be increase by slowing down your breathing thus triggering the pause and plan response. This is something I do when I get intense cravings during my fast.[3]
4. Putting some tape over your mouth before bed can stop sleep apnea. Admittedly, I have stopped this(I will restart), but when I did, I had some of the most refreshing sleep.[4]
5. Another of my mottos, progress equals happiness came from reading self-help books. [5]
You just summarised a bunch of information I could have absorbed from an article, and in this case a single comment on hackernews. Buying and reading a whole book for that level of insight seems like a waste of time.
I recommend you read Spark, I think exercise as a valid treatment for a number of mental health conditions is a good hypothesis worth exploring and experimenting.
I wouldn't take the results for granted either but I think it can be worth it to test it on yourself.
The circular design of Apple HQ seems to misunderstand the mental benefits of walking. Walking in a giant circular building your view never changes even slightly. I bet people doing that walk show fewer benefits of walking.
FWIW I used to work there and you might be right that just walking around the circle is boring, but the majority of the square footage of Apple Park is beautiful green spaces that aren't right at the circle or even necessarily within view of it.
You could probably spend at least a few hours walking along every distinct path and have very few repeated views.
Is walking on a treadmill significantly more or less beneficial than walking in a big circle? Does a constant change in view confer some measurable benefit compared to a static view?
I know it's petty and unavoidable, but it's a bummer to click an ambiguous headline like that hoping for a new tool to add to your repertoire as a wheelchair user.
That's one thing that I miss from my able-bodied life, contemplative walks. Rolling a wheelchair around and dealing with the intrinsic difficulties associated with doing so really destroys any kind of meditative quality out of the experience.
Now my deep meditative thoughts come to me in the shower, but it still doesn't hold a candle to a stroll through town during a brisk winter in fair weather.
Apologies for bringing down the mood, but I feel better.
For what it’s worth, I think the article is pointing towards deep contemplative thoughts driven by some action like walking. As someone who’s had my ability to walk in jeopardy, I always thought a row machine or rope pull down machine could accomplish a similar result. The goal being, airing out your brain and moving blood. I don’t mean to marginalize your feelings, they’re valid, just trying to share some past thoughts.
> Now my deep meditative thoughts come to me in the shower
A great place to start!
Here's a thought that might get you into some even deeper water: Have you thought about swimming?
I'm a partial-paraplegic and below-elbow on left arm amputee. I can walk but not well. My favorite walking replacement has been swimming. I'm not fast, but I can swim for hours.
In any case, I feel that almost any repetitive physical action - even shelling pea pods - can become meditative.
Hahaha, sorry I empathize but I'm so delighted that I'm not the only one who feels this way. It's not a feeling that most people can relate to, the absolute deflating feeling when you open an article about the greatest tool ever and it goes:
Wheelchair user as well. I understand what you're saying. After 19 years in a chair, I recently bought a FreeWheel. My only regret is not getting one sooner. It definitely makes getting out and about easier and more enjoyable.
Nothing comes easy for us, so we've gotta make things easy.
You actually made me reconsider how I think about this. My initial reaction to the article was that I suspect the benefit is less about the walking and more about the time spent contemplating, thinking, and the way our mind works when walking.
I wasn't at all thinking about the challenges of somebody who cannot walk, and you opened my eyes to the idea that for someone in a wheelchair, "rolling" doesn't really compare.
I get that there is probably some cognitive load navigating with a wheelchair create, but I thought that would disappear, and the idea of "movement" would be the same, but it looks like I'm wrong about that.
Would a hand bike work for you? My most meditative moments (outside of walking and prayer) have always been cycling. For the brief (several months) period where I was wheelchair bound.. a hand bike was the thing that helped me clear my head, and make me smile.
Having a dog also helps. My dog is old and slow now but she gets me out of the house! It's extra motivation because if I don't walk her she will pee somewhere inside!!
Jeez, you even had to drag Rust into it. Does the downvote button have a ‘turbo’ button like a 486? Could it actually work; instead of just slowing down/buffering performance?
I have been suffering from chronic achilles tendonitis due to decades of walking/running with outward foot pronation. The techniques discussed in the other videos of this youtube channel have helped.
> There are four types of walks to consider implementing in your routines
Ugh, can these growth hacking types stop trying to make everything into a "thing"? Can one just go out for a bloody walk without someone saying they need to make the best out of it, and to use it for spiritual and career growth. Just go out to pump some fresh blood and air in your body. There's no unproductive way of walking, for god's sake.
Also:
> University of Hong Kong researchers showed that walking side-by-side led to deeper feelings of connection, implying that walking meetings may actually create better outcomes.
Soon at your BigCo walking meetings for you to bond emotionally with your boss. We found it improves employee retention and reduces turnover rates.
I think realistically walking meeting outcomes would be worse. At least in my case, walking around outside switches me into survival mode. Raised heart rate and adrenaline. I learned this during covid when I was doing laps around the local park on a zoom meeting.
But yeah you don't need a reason or a framework in which to operate in. Just walk out of the bloody door.
>Ugh, can these growth hacking types stop trying to make everything into a "thing"? Can one just go out for a bloody walk without someone saying they need to make the best out of it, and to use it for spiritual and career growth.
No, many people can't just go for a walk as evident by the fact that they don't. Laying out the benefits can help convince some people to walk that currently don't. Just because articles like this aren't useful for you it doesn't mean there aren't useful for others.
I think you missed the OP's point. This is precisely not about "being useful to you" or "useless to someone else". The point is that not everything has to be useful, and that it is ridiculous to have to have to find some economic (in the broad, neoliberal sense) incentive to do this or that. Just do things for the sake of doing them (or not doing them), not as part of a strategy.
It is a universally accepted fact that physical exercise is good for you, and a lot of people enjoy it. If you don't exercise, it's either because you don't have the time to do it or you can't be bothered (or a bit of both). If you do have the time, then just go for a walk and stop finding excuses not to. I'd rather see people not go for a walk because they can't be bothered than convince them to do it because it'll make them more productive, better adapted to the job market, improve their "human capital", or whatever ridiculous reason "life hackers" come up with.
Coming soon will be someone who names walking side by side as a thing and writes an overly long paper/blog/book about how it solves every conceivable problem. I'll jump ahead and guess something like 'pair walking' or maybe 'linked striding'
> If there is one daily habit that has had the greatest positive impact on my life since I implemented it about a year ago, it is walking. In 2021, I averaged about 2,000 steps per day. In 2022, that figure is closer to 20,000. That 10x increase has unlocked me creatively, spiritually, mentally, and physically—I feel like a completely different person.
The author is walking almost 10 miles a day. That may be hard to do when his kids start to get older.
104 comments
[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 89.0 ms ] threadWhen I first started exercising (again) the amount of sleep I needed to function went down by over an hour more than I spent in class, so the class netted me time.
Now that I’m trying to work up to serious walking distance, it has replaces some time I spent in front of the TV, and reduced the amount of time I need to spend on other recharging activities like gardening.
This summer I decided to tackle the root cause, so I started doing daily walks during my yearly vacation (about six months ago). Most walks were short (30min), and some took a couple of hours because I was visiting friends/family/local events, going for small groceries, ... If it was less than 10km/(~ 7 miles), I had the time and the weather was reasonable, I walked.
I was convinced I would have to walk a lot in bad weather, but this turned out not to be the case: in the morning I check my calendar and the weather for that day, and mentally mark a few opportunity windows to go for a walk.
After doing this, the biggest task is getting up and putting on my waking shoes and coat (and chest light when it can get dark) when the time is there. Once I do get out the door, I usually have to force myself not to walk further than I initially planned.
In the beginning 30 minutes felt like a long walk. When I go for a walk now, it feels like I'm only beginning to get in the flow after 30 minutes. I do have a fixed route for my brisk walks that I tend to do during weekdays, which is a little over 6km and now takes at most an hour. (It used to take way longer when I started, so there's progress there as well.)
I tend to go for bigger walks during the weekends, or as a "reward" when I close a big deal/wrap up a big task...
So what did I do with all that time before I went for these walks? A lot of it was mostly feeling productive/creative: browsing around on the internet, noodling at the piano/guitar, watching TV or doing a gazillion small things. Turns out having a fixed walking window where I let my mind wander is way better for me personally: I tend to come home with at least one insight, doing a lot of "gedankenexperiments" (thought experiments) and come back more zen.
Next to this it's also improving my physique slowly but gradually. I keep close track of my progress via a smartwatch, because I'm an IT guy after all, and love tracking progress...
All things considered, it took a few weeks/months to build this habit, but in the end it was all about starting small and building up gradually, stacking up one little habit on top of the other as time progressed.
Over the last fortnight I have been unable to go for walks due to a medical procedure, and I missed my daily walks a lot. Thankfully I'm now able to slowly reboot the habit, and I don't plan on stopping with these walks anytime soon.
Highly recommended!
All the terrible unwalkable cities in the US are called that because you can’t actually walk to anything useful. In other words, those cities that require a car to do errands, go shopping, get to work, go to school, etc.
But for exercise—walking for walking’s sake—it’s usually doable. It is nice if you can get the walking “for free” by combining it with ordinary life, though
There are no sidewalks in my parents' suburban neighborhood. You just walk among the houses, and there is nowhere to go. It's no surprise that we spent our childhoods at the mall.
These dead neighborhoods are connected by high traffic roads, also with no sidewalks, each more boring than the last, each loud and dangerous.
In Germany, wherever you go, there are little paths. They go along fields and streams, between houses, from park to park. It's easy to find a pleasant place to walk from your home. It's something I dearly miss when I visit the home country.
Manila is such a place. I love walking every day. I really tried to walk there and it’s… hard.
Frustrating points about walking for me include poor road layout (e.g., to get anywhere from your neighbourhood you must first walk to basically-a-highway then walk alongside it for a time), poor air quality, noise from traffic, reckless rule-breaking drivers, missing sidewalks, stray dogs, etc.
— I find places to go. Find places you want to visit for whatever reason, maybe to grab some food or coffee, to sit and read or people-watch, and alternate between them. I don’t like repetitive exercise without any other purpose than exercise itself so I don’t just walk—I am getting somewhere. (Sometimes I don’t have a specific place in mind but I know there’ll be something I need in the general direction, like coffee. This method generally requires a denser urban area to work.)
— Shoes without heel support made a significant difference to my walking routine. They force me to land every step similarly to how I would do it if I were barefoot, not right on the heel like cushioned sneakers teach us. That combined with keeping neck and extremities relaxed at the same time really makes my body remember that there’s such a thing as abs, because suddenly every step engages abs. Maintaining this form is also a bit challenging, mentally more so than otherwise. As a result, even though I may be going somewhere, I walk more slowly and I feel better about the process.
— I monitor air quality with AirVisual; when it’s green it’s a motivating factor to get fresh air (what if tomorrow it changes to orange/red for a week, and I will want to enjoy a walk… better do it while I can).
— Carrying a camera and taking photos when I feel like it makes me more attentive to my surroundings. Some say always having a camera means I don’t live in the moment, but I suspect this hobby instead helps with that. It also requires walking to see new scenes worth photographing, even bicycling doesn’t work so well.
— Noise-canceling headphones address noise pollution, plus walking is probably the best time to listen to an audiobook or a podcast if not music.
These all help me get into the right state of mind and cope with frustrations.
Mostly unsolved problems:
— Reckless drivers. I find the only way to deal with this is to either submit or to put yourself in danger. The former can ruin your day and the latter obviously can’t be recommended. In some cities making yourself more noticeable (if you don’t naturally stand out then through high visibility clothing) may actually reduce the danger enough, but it wouldn’t help say in Seoul where they speed through red lights barely noticing anything (thankfully however in Seoul you can route your walk mostly away from wider roads or bridges where this happens).
— Heat is a problem depending on the latitude, if I don’t wake up early enough I may be demotivated to go out that day.
— Combined with all other frustrations, suburban-like sparsely populated environment tips the scales for me. I never could really enjoy walking in Chiang Mai for example, it’s boring and the probability of encountering a pack of stray dogs is bothersome.
If it's rural why would you walk on roads? Aren't (whether human or animal) paths enough?
In many places, you'd be walking directly on a road with fast vehicles that don't expect pedestrians there. Look up "stroads" and you'll understand why it sucks to walk in North America.
I love walking but very annoying these days.
More seriously, the ritual is a key part for some, it changes the focus. (But may be a nuisance for others, of course.)
> You don't take the child to playground or just to move about?
Not sure where you got that idea. I do.
But beats walking in a crowded city or having to cross roads anyday.
I live in a place where it is too hot, and only time people can go on walks is dawn/pre-morning. As a night owl, I cannot do that. So I bought a treadmill.
It has been great for me and has served me really well.
The cognitive benefits mentioned in the article and what many of us know, you can derive that from treadmill walking. I can attest to that.
Treadmill has been a lifesaver for me and has finally let me have a consistent running/walking habit.
Couldn't go out in the dawn as I am a night owl. When I managed that, winter (fog) or monsoon would ensue and mess with my routine.
Treadmill saved me.
Stephen Wolfram takes this up another level by also walking outside for a while in nature with a laptop holder[0]. Anecdotally, he reports having a lower heart rate on days he does this.
[0] https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2019/02/seeking-the-prod...
>The results indicate that treadmill walking improves spatial and temporal gait characteristics more effectively than walking outdoors.
At least in this study it seems better than walking outdoors for stroke victims. A lot of recent studies about the benefits of sunshine would lean me towards that way, but a treadmill is still super!
For mood, it seems outdoor is best-
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/28/well/move/for-exercise-no...
During the run, my mind would wander, and I would start going over some of the questions/problems from the just-completed midterm/final.
To my horror, my mind would discover the correct answer for a specific question which didn't match my response or realize that my given answer had a glaring flaw which meant there was no way I could have answered the question/problem correctly.
The midterm/final was already completed. I couldn't go back in time and correct my answer. I was stuck in a hot burning purgatory, finishing a run with my mind fixated on my incorrect answer. I couldn't un-think the error.
Once I finished the run, I'd go over the problem in my room again only to confirm my error. Then I had to wait for the results from the midterm/final to come face to face with the fact that the prof/TA had agreed that I had erred.
This happened a couple of times before I realized the nasty game my mind was playing on me. It was like PTSD - I avoided going for a run immediately after a midterm/final, afraid of what errors my mind might reveal to me. Ignorance is bliss in this case.
Finally learned to let the emotions go. What's done is done, can't do anythng about the past.
I get bored while walking/running, and can only do it while having music on (running) or have a podcast/audiobook (walking).
Music doesn't really mess with your mind going somewhere.
And you can discover connections and have other insights while listening to a podcast or an audiobook.
Try listening to an audiobook while sitting and doing nothing or doing chores versus listening to it while walking. You will gain more cognitively if you listen to it while walking. Speaking from personal experience.
I say you’re both right. While building a habit, audiobooks help a lot. When trying to set goals, music is better (tempo) but for the mental health aspects, like nature bathing, touching grass, and meditation, eventually you want nothing in your ears more often than not.
But only after you’re confident you’ll actually show up for the exercise, distractions or no.
Audiobooks are a great way to get through books you feel you should have read but can’t seem to get into.
1. Exercise is better than Zoloft in treating depression
2. Students with higher fitness scores also have higher test scores
3. People learn vocabulary words 20 percent faster following exercise than they did before exercise
4. A massive Dutch study of 19,288 twins and their families published in 2006 showed that exercisers are less anxious, less depressed, less neurotic, and also more socially outgoing.
5. A study in London in 2004 showed that even ten minutes of exercise could blunt an alcoholic’s craving.
I wrote a summary/highlight of the key ideas in the book here : https://www.chestergrant.com/highlights-from-spark-how-exerc...
Again, I'm sure exercise is great for you (how could it be bad?), but given how difficult it is to get replication in these types of studies I wouldn't trust any of the specific results... I'd bet lots of money that, for example, "People learn vocabulary words 20 percent faster" is complete BS and not replicable.
1. The frequency of a habit matters more for the development of a habit than the intensity. My chess coaching motto came from this book: "Consistency over Intensity"[1]
2. Most people are deficient in magnesium. Magnesium is considered the anti-stress mineral. A central symptom of the deficiency is insomnia. Personally, I started taking 250mg of magnesium supplement daily. [2]
3. Similarly, to the fight-or-flight response, there is pause-and-plan response. Your willpower can be increase by slowing down your breathing thus triggering the pause and plan response. This is something I do when I get intense cravings during my fast.[3]
4. Putting some tape over your mouth before bed can stop sleep apnea. Admittedly, I have stopped this(I will restart), but when I did, I had some of the most refreshing sleep.[4]
5. Another of my mottos, progress equals happiness came from reading self-help books. [5]
[1] - https://www.chestergrant.com/26-highlights-from-mini-habits-...
[2] - https://www.chestergrant.com/highlights-from-sleep-smarter-b...
[3] - https://www.chestergrant.com/notes-the-willpower-instinct-by...
[4] - https://www.chestergrant.com/summary-breath-by-james-nestor
[5] - https://www.chestergrant.com/the-progress-principle-by-teres...
I wouldn't take the results for granted either but I think it can be worth it to test it on yourself.
You could probably spend at least a few hours walking along every distinct path and have very few repeated views.
That's one thing that I miss from my able-bodied life, contemplative walks. Rolling a wheelchair around and dealing with the intrinsic difficulties associated with doing so really destroys any kind of meditative quality out of the experience.
Now my deep meditative thoughts come to me in the shower, but it still doesn't hold a candle to a stroll through town during a brisk winter in fair weather.
Apologies for bringing down the mood, but I feel better.
> Now my deep meditative thoughts come to me in the shower
A great place to start!
Here's a thought that might get you into some even deeper water: Have you thought about swimming?
I'm a partial-paraplegic and below-elbow on left arm amputee. I can walk but not well. My favorite walking replacement has been swimming. I'm not fast, but I can swim for hours.
In any case, I feel that almost any repetitive physical action - even shelling pea pods - can become meditative.
The Walk.
It's kinda funny.
Nothing comes easy for us, so we've gotta make things easy.
I wasn't at all thinking about the challenges of somebody who cannot walk, and you opened my eyes to the idea that for someone in a wheelchair, "rolling" doesn't really compare.
I get that there is probably some cognitive load navigating with a wheelchair create, but I thought that would disappear, and the idea of "movement" would be the same, but it looks like I'm wrong about that.
Don't forget to meditate, journal, go on silent retreats, take cold showers, eat a kiwi a day, and use Rust for maximum life success!
Ah, and don't forget to breathe. I read it increases longevity.
It's nice to do things just for the sake of it, with a level of intensity that feels right, without keeping score.
I have been suffering from chronic achilles tendonitis due to decades of walking/running with outward foot pronation. The techniques discussed in the other videos of this youtube channel have helped.
Get a dog.
Ugh, can these growth hacking types stop trying to make everything into a "thing"? Can one just go out for a bloody walk without someone saying they need to make the best out of it, and to use it for spiritual and career growth. Just go out to pump some fresh blood and air in your body. There's no unproductive way of walking, for god's sake.
Also:
> University of Hong Kong researchers showed that walking side-by-side led to deeper feelings of connection, implying that walking meetings may actually create better outcomes.
Soon at your BigCo walking meetings for you to bond emotionally with your boss. We found it improves employee retention and reduces turnover rates.
Got it from another comment on HN. It's really good down to earth, not everything has to be a thing, stuff.
But yeah you don't need a reason or a framework in which to operate in. Just walk out of the bloody door.
I was thinking ministry of silly walks and how many of those to implement in my routines.
No, many people can't just go for a walk as evident by the fact that they don't. Laying out the benefits can help convince some people to walk that currently don't. Just because articles like this aren't useful for you it doesn't mean there aren't useful for others.
It is a universally accepted fact that physical exercise is good for you, and a lot of people enjoy it. If you don't exercise, it's either because you don't have the time to do it or you can't be bothered (or a bit of both). If you do have the time, then just go for a walk and stop finding excuses not to. I'd rather see people not go for a walk because they can't be bothered than convince them to do it because it'll make them more productive, better adapted to the job market, improve their "human capital", or whatever ridiculous reason "life hackers" come up with.
>The point is that not everything has to be useful
to framing it in terms of its usefulness
>physical exercise is good for you
How else are they going to increase their social media engagement numbers?!
Anyway yeah walking is good if you can. Make it incidental so it is not on your todo list. Dogs, public transport over cars, etc.
The author is walking almost 10 miles a day. That may be hard to do when his kids start to get older.