In Praise of Walking Quotes

“One interesting study has recently found that lack of activity i even associated with personality change, and by this I mean change for the worse. Overall, lower levels of physical activity were associated with changes in three of the 'Big Five' factors of personality (these are openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticisim, easy to remember as OCEAN). Lower level of physical activity were associated with declines in openness, extraversion and agreeableness, suggesting a 'detrimental' pattern of long-term personality change. Eve minimal levels of activity were found to have moderating effect on personality change. Those individuals who were the most inactive were the ones most likely to show these negatives personality changes.”
― Shane O'Mara, In Praise of Walking: The new science of how we walk and why it’s good for us

“The core lesson of this book is this: walking enhances every aspect of our social, psychological and neural functioning. It is the simple, life-enhancing, health-building prescription we all need, one that we should take in regular doses, large and small, at a good pace, day in, day out, in nature and in our towns and cities. We need to make walking a natural, habitual part of our everyday lives.”
― Shane O'Mara, In Praise of Walking: A New Scientific Exploration

“Although walking arises from our deep, evolutionary past, it is our future too: for walking will do you all the good that you now know it does.”
― Shane O'Mara, In Praise of Walking: A New Scientific Exploration

“What works best in the cities is walkability,' says Jeff Speck, the renowned urban planner. And the best walks in cities, according to Speck, must be useful, safe, comfortable and interesting.”
― Shane O'Mara, In Praise of Walking: The new science of how we walk and why it’s good for us

“Some cultures venerate this experience: the Japanese, for example, have the glorious tradition of ‘forest bathing’ (shinrin-yoku): the practice of absorptive, enveloping walking in deep forests for the soothing properties of being connected to, and fully immersed in, the sights, sounds and feel of nature.”
― Shane O'Mara, In Praise of Walking: A New Scientific Exploration

“The larger lesson is clear: brains have evolved for movement. If you're going to be stuck, unmoving, in one place, with all your food around you, then why do you need a costly brain?”
― Shane O'Mara, In Praise of Walking: A New Scientific Exploration

“We need urban planners and engineers to embrace walkability as the core activity that our cities and towns revolve around and depend upon – for all our sakes.”
― Shane O'Mara, In Praise of Walking: A New Scientific Exploration

“As we become an increasingly urban-dwelling species we need to remember this – our cities are for people.”
― Shane O'Mara, In Praise of Walking: A New Scientific Exploration

“The true charm of pedestrianism does not lie in the walking, or in the scenery, but in the talking. The walking is good to time the movement of the tongue by, and to keep the blood and the brain stirred up and active; the scenery and the woodsy smells are good to bear in upon a man an unconscious and unobtrusive charm and solace to eye and soul and sense; but the supreme pleasure comes from the talk.”
― Shane O'Mara, In Praise of Walking: A New Scientific Exploration

“Social walking can be the best of walking, whether towards a common goal, or just sauntering along with no particular place to go.”
― Shane O'Mara, In Praise of Walking: A New Scientific Exploration

“Flow is the subjective experience of concentration and deep enjoyment accompanying or arising from skilled performance.”
― Shane O'Mara, In Praise of Walking: A New Scientific Exploration

“Albert Einstein captured this well: ‘Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. That’s relativity.”
― Shane O'Mara, In Praise of Walking: A New Scientific Exploration

“They also suggest that the standard methods of assessing creativity used through the generations by psychologists and neuroscientists may be underestimating our capacity for creativity, because the environments that we test in, and the postures that we ask participants to adopt, constrain how they perform.”
― Shane O'Mara, In Praise of Walking: A New Scientific Exploration

“it may therefore be the case that walking at a speed just below that which requires continual monitoring exerts the best possible effect on creative cognition.”
― Shane O'Mara, In Praise of Walking: A New Scientific Exploration

“We speed up our walking, unconsciously competing against others seeking the same resources.”
― Shane O'Mara, In Praise of Walking: A New Scientific Exploration

“Imagine you have just moved to a new city, one that has extensive urban sprawl and lacks good mass transit. Getting around requires a car. The opportunities for random social interaction are few, because of the design of the transport system. Being in a car militates against easy face-to-face interaction and chanced-upon conversation; every sight of another human being is mediated through glass. By contrast, in a densely packed neighbourhood, where people randomly intersect easily at corners, at cafés, in local shops, people can build a social network quicker and easier. Besides”
― Shane O'Mara, In Praise of Walking: A New Scientific Exploration

“In a study conducted on a selection of cities, it was shown that the higher the walkability of the city, the lower the activity inequality (a measure of the degree to which each person walks a similar amount as other people; it is a similar measure to income inequality – the extent to which incomes are the same or different in a population), meaning that overall population obesity was also lower.5”
― Shane O'Mara, In Praise of Walking: A New Scientific Exploration

“We are still learning the lessons of urbanisation, and how it affects every aspect of our lives. And yet urban design is something owned and practised by architects and city planners rather than by neuroscientists or psychologists. This is a great pity, something to be lamented, because the science and sensibility that psychology and neuroscience can bring to urban design – to improve the liveability and walkability of a city – is significant, as we will see. Urban design that fully and properly takes account of the needs of walkers will make cities much more attractive places to live and work.”
― Shane O'Mara, In Praise of Walking: A New Scientific Exploration

“Walking a city is the best way to get to know it. You can’t get to know the mood of a place, its energy and pace, when you’re driving”
― Shane O'Mara, In Praise of Walking: A New Scientific Exploration

“I should have been a pair of ragged claws / Scuttling across the floors of silent seas’,”
― Shane O'Mara, In Praise of Walking: A New Scientific Exploration

“I offer the acronym EASE to assist our city designers. To enable the passeggiata, our cities should be easy (to walk); accessible (to all); safe (for everyone), and enjoyable (for all).”
― Shane O'Mara, In Praise of Walking: The new science of how we walk and why it’s good for us

“And yet urban design is something owned and practised by architects and city planners rather than by neuroscientists or psychologists. This is a great pity, something to be lamented, because the science and sensiblity that psychology and neuroscience can bring to urban design - to improve the liveability and walkability of a city - is significant,as we will see. Urban design that fully and properly takes account of the needs of walkers will make cities much more attractive places to live and work.”
― Shane O'Mara, In Praise of Walking: The new science of how we walk and why it’s good for us

“Adoro camminare per le ragioni più svariate, ma ai primi posti della classifica metterei il fatto che trovo sia il modo migliore di liberarsi la testa dal clamore del giorno. Camminare mi dà la libertà di riflettere, di avere un dialogo silenzioso con me stesso riguardo ai problemi da risolvere. Magari si tratta di questioni prosaiche, ma che comunque per me contano.”
― Shane O'Mara, In Praise of Walking: A New Scientific Exploration