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The French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau commented that ‘I can only meditate when I am walking. When I stop, I cease to think; my mind only works with my legs.’2
as if the mere act of standing mobilises cognitive and neural resources that would otherwise remain quiescent. Moreover, recent studies show that walking increases blood flow through the brain, and does so in a way that offsets the effects of sitting around.6 Regularly interrupting prolonged bouts of immobility through the simple act of standing up changes the state of the brain by calling on greater neurocognitive resources, constituting a call to action as well as a call to cognition.
suggesting that the act of regular walking mobilises plastic changes in the very structure of the brain, strengthening it in ways similar to how muscles are strengthened when worked. One way of interpreting the literature on
Walking is also associated with improved creativity, improved mood, and the general sharpening of our thinking. Periods of aerobic exercise after learning can actually
Walking allows me to walk it off, whatever it is. Walking clears my mind, allowing me to think things through. Natural movement brings with it experiences and demands on the
of our being, from our physical health, to our mental health, to our social lives and beyond.
MRI is a medically safe, non-invasive procedure that
imaging tool is positron emission tomography (PET), which involves the injection of radioactive tracers into the
of psychologists and neuroscientists have not studied mobile minds and brains with the intensity that perhaps we might have done.11 To be fair to legions of experimenters, this has occurred
This leads us to an important, and general, conclusion: walking markedly changes activity in the brain in subtle, important and powerful ways.
(Need to lose weight? Don’t go to the gym; go for a really, really long walk. And do it in nature, over a period of days to weeks. It will be far more beneficial to you.) Overall, our
with dietary changes, markedly help protect the heart against factors that promote heart disease.
best at recognising walking’s essential and intrinsic virtues and rewards. The poet I return to, time and again, is T. S. Eliot. I find Eliot’s poetry has a cadence and rhythm that are remarkable, especially if read aloud. His great modernist poem ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’ (1915) is a journey on foot, and a
The broader lesson from evolution, therefore, is this: selection and modification of pre-existing adaptations, with the preservation of their key components, in terms of structural morphology, appears to be the rule. Not
What is needed is a full accounting of energy intake and use: we need to know how the body balances energy intake, energy storage (i.e. fat deposition) and energy output. We humans are a highly omnivorous species. We scavenge,
Rather, a change in the type, quality and quantity of calories we consume has to be a major target of public policy, if the epidemic of problems associated with obesity is to be tamed.28 To be clear: I am not arguing here
It is clearly and palpably the case that being active is better for every single organ system of the body than being inactive. And better again that this
Activity is central and vital for the control of obesity, but it is only part of the picture. Energy intake is also a major element.
How does this job of balancing while moving – inertial guidance – work? Draw a line from the corner, or outer canthus, of the eye – the point at which the eyelids meet – to the ear canal. However active we are being, the brain will always attempt to maintain this imaginary
‘vestibular system’, the word vestibule meaning an ‘antechamber, hall, or lobby next to the outer door of a building’.5 If you were foolish enough to push a pen about one to two centimetres through your eardrum, you would permanently
During walking, one foot always remains on the ground, unlike running, where both feet can leave the ground simultaneously. Walking is the outcome of an extraordinary collaboration between top-down control by the brain, bottom-up
The brain’s GPS system is also found in widely divergent species – it is ‘conserved’ by evolution. Beyond extending the boundaries of what we know about our brains, these discoveries have
Walking to somewhere depends on the brain’s navigation system, and in turn walking provides a vast amount of ongoing information to the brain’s mapping and navigation systems. These are mutually enriching and reinforcing systems.
The world we inhabit is increasingly urban, and it is a complicated one. Our urban space is a world of artifice, quite unlike anything found in the natural world we evolved in. Most humans now live, and
often follow paths that have been inscribed by millions of footfalls over very many generations. That is not true of our modern towns and cities. Where we walk, and the surfaces we walk on, are specified not by prior natural human movement, but by deliberate
Urban design that fully and properly takes account of the needs of walkers will make cities much more attractive places
Similarly, we first shape our cities, and then our cities shape us. To extend the metaphor, our cities walk us, for the shape of the cities we create determines the shape of our urban walking, for better or worse.
whereas in Ferrol, in Spain, it is 46% of the available space. Is this because some cities build over their green
This is good news, in the sense that easy access to nature is a vital contributor to, and supporter of, our mental health. However, as the urban population grows, the green space available per person necessarily falls.
Besides increasing sociability, making cities walkable has another profound and important effect: it intensifies economic activity. Walkable offices and shops in downtown areas can
we coordinate our walking speed with that of others.
Our brains are deeply social. We can often read what people are about to do just by looking at them. There are lots of possible simple rules and heuristics which we might use to guide our behaviour in crowds. These might
The life you have, the way you think about the future and the past will change if you are living in the city. Greater competition for resources subtly
Thrillingly, there is now an emerging body of science that supports this anecdotal feeling, and which indicates that walking, especially in regular doses, often in nature, does actually improve how we feel. Think of all those blustery, rainy, long walks that at the time might have felt arduous, but at the end left you feeling elated. A good walk boosts how
this I mean change for the worse.3 Overall, lower levels of physical activity were associated with changes in three of the ‘Big Five’ factors of personality (these are
would be a viable way of reversing negative changes in personality resulting from a sessile life.
Certainly, many take the view that we need to care for nature and that nature as a source of well-being is central in our lives. There is also the great concern that human activity is having perhaps irreversible, and certainly malign, effects – from species hunted to extinction to contamination of water courses and seas with
The increasing pressures of modern life tend to increase mental fatigue, but restorative experiences in nature might decrease it. This restorative effect is best mediated through a connection to natural environments because
It’s also been shown that the positive effect on mood after spending time in nature applies to a range of people of different ages, both male and female, across the globe. Perhaps more importantly, the impact of exposure to nature is comparable to other factors affecting individual happiness, including personal income levels, level of education, degree of religiosity, marital status, volunteering and physical attractiveness.
being, we should be encouraging our populations to regularly, habitually, walk in nature, even if they only have access to city parks.
The protective effect for exercise against depression occurred even for very low levels of exercise: infrequent walking, approximately once a week or so. The overall conclusion suggests that, assuming that activity underlies the observed reduction in cases of depression, approximately 12% of future cases of depression
In this context, the phrase ‘walk it off’ may mean something. In the case of major depression, though, it may not.21
emerging findings do suggest that regular walking has acute and chronic effects on mood, boosting feelings of well-being both in the moment and long-term. *
New brain cells are, however, only made in a few locations in the brain (a process known as ‘neurogenesis’). One especially important location is in a part of the hippocampal formation known as the dentate gyrus.
and an idea that is supported by findings that there is positive feedback and positive crosstalk between the activity of skeletal muscle and the brain.
Being sedentary is bad for you, even if you are young and fit: your muscles will decrease in volume, quickly and easily, if they are unused. Moreover, loss of muscle mass is also
‘walking opens up the free flow of ideas’. These and similar studies suggest that walking is a powerful boost to creative cognition because of the particular way it entrains remote associations in the brain, in addition to
When mood and posture are congruent, even a negative mood with a closed posture, creativity should be affected positively. And the effects noted by
unconsciously we start to mimic each other’s gait, which entrains other, deeper processes in the brain and body: our breathing becomes synchronised, our heart rates must perform similar functions at similar times, and our brains simultaneously take account of what it is that the other person is likely to do, as well as monitoring and controlling what it is that you yourself are doing.
our walking has a profoundly social function, as in when the child runs to and is swept up in the arms of a caregiver, dodges
