How Walking Helps Mental Health

Eating nutritious foods, getting the right amount of exercise and exercise are the best ways to stay physically healthy. For those who do not want to exercise hard, walking is a healthy activity that can improve the health of the body.

For Self Confident

People who walk a lot report being in a better mood and having more energy. The more steps we take in a day, the more fit we would be.

Improves Mood

That said, research led by psychologist Dominic Julien among 436 seniors (68 to 82) found that walking for 30 minutes 3-5 times a week would be enough to improve mood. So, when you're old, you limit yourself! Perhaps it is important not to associate walking with a forced activity, with an obligation. This is how walking helps our mental health.

More creative

Marily Oppezzo and Daniel L. Schwartz show us another beneficial aspect of walking: it inspires imagination and new ideas. When you need to be inventive, to find an unusual solution to a problem, it's a good idea to take a walk for a few minutes. When, on the contrary, we have to exercise what we call convergent thinking (giving a correct answer that does not require creativity), we would do well to remain seated, not to move too much.

Improve our speed of thought

Stephen Cunnane, professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of Sherbrooke, was interested in the benefits of walking in people suffering from the onset of Alzheimer's. It results from one of his researches that walking would improve cognitive abilities somewhat, in particular the speed of information processing. The brain is activated.

More productive

Researcher Elise Labonte-Lemoyne evaluated the benefits of a workstation equipped with a treadmill (called an “active office”). Eighteen people had to read a long text on the screen for 40 minutes while receiving emails. Some were walking at a speed of 2.5 km on the treadmill, others were seated. Those who used the mat improved information retention by 35%.

Concentrate better

It is indeed more pleasant to walk in the company of someone who goes at the same pace as you. We are more comfortable. Walking in pairs also means looking together in the same direction and not being distracted by the gestures and facial expressions of the person you are with: you can concentrate better on your words.

Inhabit your body

The bicycle, the car, the motorbike, the plane extract a little of our natural gravity. To walk is to be obliged to inhabit one's body, which brings us back to a certain humility. We are only ourselves, nothing more when we walk. You can feel very small when you are in a crowd. You can also go in search of the great outdoors to give yourself the pleasure of seeing far. Seeing the vastness of the sky expands our consciousness.

Walking is also

It is slowing down, leaving the screens to dive into reality. It is appealing to your senses: the smells, the noises, the beauty of the places where you are. Christine Engelhard, in Go to yourself, reminds us that in traditional Chinese medicine, illness is a stop in the circulation of IQ: when energy is blocked, it no longer circulates correctly, which causes symptoms. To unlock, we advance, we walk. When we can, of course.

Think about it

When you have a choice to make, a decision to make, the desire to let your mind wander, the easiest way is to go for a walk. Whether the ride is short or long, whether you make it a trip, whether you have a goal or not, whether you go slowly or quickly, it's free, pleasant, rejuvenating, entertaining. These words could inspire us: "Do good to your body so that your soul wants to stay there".