A few years ago, I started a sharing a series of stories in my newsletter. Now, I am making those stories and the practices for better living available here. I call this series Lessons for Living.
Last week I shared a story about a time in guatemala when walking got me out of very tricky waters…This week I wanted to give you a bit of the SCIENCE so you can better understand how powerful walking can be for you too.
Reduce Anxiety and Increase Stress Resilience
Have you ever gone for a walk and just felt better?
Did it ever seem incredible that you felt better despite the problems still being there?
In my last Newsletter I shared a story about how walking literally saved me… if you want to read about “That Time in Guatemala” you will find the link at the bottom of the page.
In my story the walking did actually solve the problem, but the magic of our body can help explain why walking makes us feel so good even when that is not the case.
Distorting one of Shakespeare’s most quoted lines, here is a hint:
“if movement be the food of well-being, walk on”
In other words, walking is so intrinsic to us as bipeds that it touches and supports many of our bodily systems including our ability to keep walking our path when the shit hits the fan (more on that in the next newsletter).
If you want to know some of why walking is such a superstar of Salutogenisis* then look no further.
*Salutogenisis is the study of the origins of health and illuminates those factors that promote health and well-being.
. . .
The Science
To start our journey into the mechanism of how walking is so supportive we are going to start with the eyes.
It might seem strange to talk about our eyes when we talk about the benefits of walking, but please, read on.
Our eyes are literally a part of the nervous system that just happen to sit outside the brain. When our pupils dilate, i.e. narrowing our field of focus, like when you are concentrated, it stimulates the part of the nervous system, the parasympathetic nervous system, that creates alertness. That mild arousal is what helps keep us focused. Full disclosure, it is our stress response that causes the eyes to dilate, but the act of dilating our eyes intentionally also stimulates a mild stress response.
Staying in high-focus visual mode for too long (think focused on your phone or computer screen) can trigger feelings of anxiety, stress, hypervigilance, and irritability.
Walking as Anti-Axienty Medicine :
When we walk (mind you this is not true if you are on a treadmill) your pupils constrict and your eyes move left to right, capturing the horizon and what is on your periphery. As we walk the process of the objects in the environment appearing larger makes us aware that we are moving towards them. This phenomenon, called optic flow, is a way that we perceive our body’s movement in space and the environment’s movement relative to us. The sounds we hear and how they change as we move in space also helps in this perception and is part of optic flow. (This is how blind people orient and perceive their motion).
The extraordinary thing that we now know about optic flow thanks to the incredible work of Francine Shapiro, is that it helps in stress management and trauma recovery.
If you have ever heard of EMDR therapy, we have Francine Shapiro to thank. She noticed that arousal from a traumatic event was minimized when she walked, her subsequent research showed that lateralized movement of the eyes and optic flow had a calming/quieting effect on the amygdala.
The amygdala is part of a larger network in your brain called the limbic system which detect danger and are extremely important when it comes to your survival. Self-generated forward motion, like walking, has the effect of quieting the amygdala, i.e. telling the amygdala that ‘it’s all good here’.
The other part of our nervous system, the “rest and digest/sympathetic nervous system”, is activated when you look at a wide-open horizon and attention is brought to your peripheral vision. So when you are calm/in parasympathetic mode your eyes constrict, and when you engage in an activity in which your eyes constrict puts us back into parasympathetic mode.
This is a demonstration of the amazing feedback loops of our body. It is also why embodiment and body-based instruments are so great at stabilizing our nervous system and contributing to our overall health.
In other words, walking (biking, running, skating, or swimming) where we are creating our own forward motion and allowing our eyes to constrict is a wonderful tool to reduce anxiety and fear. We basically have our own anti-stress tool and a way to build resilience to stress, not quite at the push of a button, but with every step we take.
The Practice
At the risk of being redundant…
WALK!
Walk regularly,
Walk often,
Walk in nature
Walk focusing on your external environment*
*…and given how sounds feed into optic flow, preferably do it without listening to your favorite podcast or calling a friend.
