Why We Need to Walk -- Now More Than Ever [View all]

You’ve got to move more. It’s all too easy in these days at home to retreat to the couch. The truth is, we all know we need to move more, and we know we will feel the better for it. Movement is good for the brain and body, and we all know regular movement is one of the best ways of keeping fit and healthy. We evolved to walk long-ish distances every day (more than ten miles a day) every day of our lives from early childhood until very late in adulthood, and this walking acts as a self-repair mechanism for brain and body. Walking comes naturally to us, and is good for us in more ways than we know.

However, we have also evolved to conserve energy, to sit around, to eat and to store fat for the lean winters that used to be ahead of us. Now, though, food is abundantly available in the developed world all year around. We don’t need to walk long distances to forage for food. Walking lots allows to explore our world, building, as we walk, the ‘cognitive maps’ our brains make to understand our world, as well as strengthening the connections of the brain areas involved in learning and memory.

Modern work life can be so very bad for us. The modern world doesn’t help us to move at all. You might sit at your desk for seven or eight hours. And you might be sitting during your commute. This could add up to ten hours of indolence, five or six days a week. As few as three or four days without movement reduces muscle mass in the legs and replaces it with deposits of fat. You won’t notice this when you’re 30, but you will when you are 60, needing assistance to stand up out of your chair.

Sedentary living over decades slowly changes aspects of your personality for the worse: you will be less open to new experiences, you will become less extraverted, and you will be less agreeable. These personality factors are central to normal social life and social living. Sedentary living makes you more withdrawn, and inward looking. And, in turn, social isolation predisposes you to diseases of the brain, such as dementia.

Hitting the gym and pounding a treadmill for an hour after work doesn’t cut it either. Our bodies and brains are designed for, and need, lots of regular movement right throughout the course of the day. Walking is an easy solution our brains adore, and are built to profit from. Lots of regular, reliable, rhythmic, up-tempo walking throughout the day stimulates the production of molecules promoting brain health, and even brain resilience to the effects of chronic stress.

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https://shaneomara.com/2020/05/12/why-we-need-to-walk-now-more-than-ever/



O'Mara is a Professor of Experimental Brain Research at Trinity College Dublin and a Wellcome Trust Senior Investigator.