Thrive: The Third Metric to Redefining Success and Creating a Life of Well-Being, Wisdom, and Wonder

by Arianna Huffington

The benefits of getting up and walking—of moving—go beyond our bodies. A study led by University of Illinois researchers shows that walking three times a week for forty minutes at one’s own natural pace helps combat the effects of aging and increases brain connectivity and cognitive performance. So it’s not just ruminative, creative thinking that’s enhanced by walking—our focused, get-things-done type of thinking is improved, as well. Perhaps in addition to walking meetings we should consider creating walking classrooms. Though he didn’t have the science to back up his beliefs about the benefits of walking, Henry David Thoreau was onto this truth long ago. “Methinks that the moment my legs begin to move, my thoughts begin to flow,” he wrote. In her book Wanderlust, author Rebecca Solnit noted the connection between the act of walking and how we experience the world. “Walking shares with making and working that crucial element of engagement of the body and the mind with the world,” she wrote, “of knowing the world through the body and the body through the world.”