Did you know you can jumpstart your brain just by walking?
I am a slow walker, but I never walk back.~Abraham Lincoln
Yes, you can jumpstart your brain just by walking. Walking can help you think, learn, solve problems, and improve your mood. Scientists have long known that people with fit bodies are more likely to have better cognitive functions even into extreme old age. Spring is here, and walking is a great way to get some gentle physical activity and help your brain, too.
Walk to Work Day
April 7th is “Walk to Work Day.” Created and promoted by Prevention magazine, Walk to Work Day has been unofficially on the government calendar since 2004 when Director Tommy Thompson of the US Department of Health and Human Services proposed adopting it. Walking is a simple effective way of promoting physical and mental health, and one most people have access to. If you work from a home office as I do, you can run up and down the stairs, do a few circuits around your building, or take a walk around the block. If you are physically impaired and can’t walk, find your own ways to promote physical activity in whatever way you can.
An evolutionary basis
The connection between thinking and moving may be directly related to our evolutionary history as humans. David Raichlen, a professor of biological sciences at the University of Southern California, observes when early humans transitioned from a relatively sedentary existence, simply eating what was available in the immediate areas, to hunter-gatherers, there was a pronounced increase in human brain size. Raichlen notes the hunter-gatherer way of life is both physically and cognitively demanding. If you are foraging, you need to be able to determine what is safe to eat or whether you have the physical capacity to capture something, as well as be able to light out for safety at a moment’s notice if threatened. He studied the Hazda society and determined people were engaging in physical activity an average of 135 minutes per day; in industrialized societies, we average 150 minutes of physical activity in a week.
Since the advent of agrarianism, with relative food security, we have lived far more sedentary lives. The industrial revolution continued this trend, including the advent of mechanized transportation. And once the personal computer came on the scene, well, as most of you are well aware, we are pretty well anchored to our seats. Even if you take your computer with you to a coffee shop, you most likely will still end up sitting while you work. Maybe you could walk to your coffee shop on April 7th.
How does walking work to help jumpstart your brain?
Walking may help your brain by increasing blood flow which in turn increases the available oxygen your brain needs to think. Walking also releases endorphins, boosting our mood. Just walking 30 minutes a day has been associated with reducing the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease or other forms of dementia. A June 2021 study in NueroImage suggests walking aerobically can help renovate white matter, the network of nerve fibers or axons that allows different areas of your brain to communicate with each other, improving episodic memory performance. According to Dr. David Rabin, MD, PhD, this can happen in just six months of walking regularly. I know from personal experience that walking can jumpstart your brain.
Can walking help you concentrate?
The other way that walking can help your brain is through an increased ability to concentrate. Dr. Annie Paul Murphy in The Extended Mind: The Power of Thinking Outside the Brain (2022) devotes an entire chapter to thinking with movement. Among the many ideas she discusses is the advent of the idea that sitting down to think is good for us. Most kids would think (!) otherwise, judging from the amount of fidgeting that goes on when told to sit still and concentrate. Standing desks and walking to think were ideas that met with derision in academic circles as recently as 2009. Stopping ourselves from moving actually takes a great deal of effort and inhibits learning because our attentiveness is a limited resource.
Talk walkin’
There is more and more evidence the peripatetic teaching and learning method sometimes attributed to Socrates (BCE 470-399) still holds up for human beings. My grandfather, a serial inventor, would “talk walk”. He felt he could think better, learn better, and listen better when on the move. Likewise, Dr. Daniel Schwartz, Dean of the Stanford Graduate School of Education, urges his doctoral students to talk and walk with him while brainstorming topics for their dissertations. Essayist Rebecca Solnit feels 3 miles per hour induces “mobile intelligence.”
Author Daniel Kahneman walks four miles a day and feels that 3.5 miles an hour is ideal for creative thinking, and trying to go faster turns walking into exercise, reducing his ability to creatively play with ideas. Walking and talking might give you a new idea or change your perspective on your work.
Thinking with philosophers
Dr. Frédéric Gros, in his book, A Philosophy of Walking, discusses how walking can bring a sense of peace and slow down the pace of experience. He says walking is “the best way to go more slowly than any other method found” and “it emancipates you from speediness.” Dr. Gros noticed how many well-known philosophers were also walkers. Check out the quotes below.
- Jean Jacques Rosseau (1712-1778): “I am unable to reflect when I am not walking.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882: “Walking is gymnastics for the mind.”
- Soren Kirkegaard (1813-1855): “I have walked myself into my best thoughts.”
- Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862): “Methinks that the moment my legs begin to move, my thoughts begin to flow.”
- Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900): “Only thoughts that come from walking have any value.”
Another professor of philosophy, Dr. Douglas Anderson, also noticed the same walking-thinking connection and began teaching while moving with the students around campus. No longer seated in a lecture, he noticed students were more engaged and animated in discussing the readings. Researcher Marily Oppezzo created experiments to test the connection between walking and creativity. If presented with an object and asked to find a use for it, participants who walked came up with 4 to 6 more uses than those participants who remained seated. Additionally, she found free-form walking without a particular destination allowed the brain to make unexpected “more fluid” connections.
Conclusion
Do you want to think better? Then hop out of that chair right now, start walking, and jumpstart your brain. Instead of going for a coffee break, take a movement break. Flail your arms around. Wiggle your fingers and toes while standing. Walk around the block. Run up and down the stairs like I do when I have very little time. Then enjoy all the benefits to your working brain that come from walking.
If you are still struggling to jumpstart your brain, contact Hillary for a 20-minute complimentary strategy session.
Tags: academia, academic, attitude, happiness, planning, productivity, writing
