The positive effect of walking on creative thinking (2014) [pdf] | Hacker News Reader

The positive effect of walking on creative thinking (2014) [pdf]

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330 pointsgmays168 comments

I listen to audiobooks while walking and it makes it easier to focus and overall more enjoyable.

I also discovered that human memory is weird as heck. When I walk my mind is somehow mapping my physical location in the world to the content, down to the sentence. If I rewind an audio book I can fairly often remember where exactly I heard a particular sentence. The precise street corner or park trail I was on, to like a 10 feet precision. I do not otherwise have strong memory. WTF brain.

Does anyone else have this experience? I guess this is a peak into how 'memory palaces' work and how people memorize huge volumes of information?

I spend most of day in a single location and it really makes me want to try and change that. If my brain is spending all this freaking effort maintaining an index of knowledge mapped to GPS coordinates anyway, probably I should try to leverage some of this indexing.

I wonder if this applies on different levels. Is a one-classroom school possibly less effective than a school where each subject is learned in a different room, for example? If it is, what if you amped this up and had very fine-grained physical location changes. Alternatively does it actually need to be a different location? If I had projectors on all the walls in my room so it felt like a different location, could there be a similar effect? Or what about studying in a VR environment, a virtual walk?

This is how it's (in theory?) more effective to learn new languages using flashcards with a photo attached to text, I guess your brain can associate the information with visual input and somehow can store it better?

That's the old method of loci for better memorization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Method_of_loci

> _remember where exactly I heard a particular sentence_

Ha! Yes. Sometimes VLC doesn't remember where I was in the book so I have to faff around a bit and try to figure out where I was.

When I skip to content that I've heard before, usually I not only remember that I've heard them before, I remember where I was on my walk when I heard them!

>Does anyone else have this experience?

Absolutely. I remember pieces of conversations I would have with people in particular places. When I go though these places, these conversation bits pop up.

> Does anyone else have this experience?

Yes. Music too, to some extent. I can 're-walk' through many hours of hiking matching songs, albums and melodies to particular views. Audio-books leave a much stronger memory. Sometimes I can 'visually' put myself in a location previously walked and recall longish passages of poetry and philosophy.

I suspect it's absolutely useless for learning mathematics and code though.

I remember being told in college that students who take tests in their usual classroom tend to score better than students who take tests in, say, some random auditorium or testing center.

This is known as context-dependent memory [0]. Interestingly, it also occurs with your mood and other cognitive states: If you’re always happy in your class, you’ll perform better if you’re happy for your test, and vice vers if you’re sad.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Context-dependent_memory

I’ve experienced this often, and am reminded of a book that covers research around many of your thoughts, which I listened to as I walked around a local lake. Very interesting content.

The Extended Mind: The Power of Thinking Outside the Brain https://a.co/d/4fhFI6M

Would be really interesting to have some kind of tool that automatically laid out some information you want to learn in a 3D virtual environment. Imagine if you could just tell this system you want to study a certain book, and it automatically generates a fitting virtual world for it. A kind of instant mind palace.

> Would be really interesting to have some kind of tool that automatically laid out some information you want to learn in a 3D virtual environment.

I predict that there will be one class of PIM & note-taking applications working exactly that way in a near future, with a strong spatial component. Outliners and file systems provide that effect in some way, attaching certain thoughts and topics to specific points in a hierarchical tree.

With augmented reality systems and AI image creation applied to note-taking, the system could easily generate images related to the topic for each cluster of notes, so that you can remember where some ideas are placed by the outlook associated to them. An instant VR mind palace, so to speak.

I think other similar research has mostly determined that it’s about alertness more than geography. You happen to be particularly alert when walking.

That being said, teachers used to tell me it was important to take tests in the same seat you sat in to learn the material. Even switching something as simple as your vantage point would change access to the memories. It’s all pretty complicated stuff!

> I also discovered that human memory is weird as heck. When I walk my mind is somehow mapping my physical location in the world to the content, down to the sentence. If I rewind an audio book I can fairly often remember where exactly I heard a particular sentence. The precise street corner or park trail I was on, to like a 10 feet precision. I do not otherwise have strong memory. WTF brain.

Same experience here. I bike to a big street crossing and I remember suddenly what the hero was doing 1 year ago when I was there the last time :)

And it's split depending on weather and whether I'm walking or biking :) It's especially weird when I'm listening to some book or podcast where travel happens - like Critical Role for example. I now have nearest 50 km around my city mapped onto a D&D world by accident :)

>It's especially weird when I'm listening to some book or podcast where travel happens - like Critical Role for example. I now have nearest 50 km around my city mapped onto a D&D world by accident

Amazing. I'm dying.

I also have the same experience with memory. Often I'll revisit an area and have a very strong recollection of a particular part of a story/book and be momentarily confused. Until I realise that yes, the first time I listened to a particular story was on a particular road or by a park somewhere. Naturally this effect is reduced if it's a place I go to all the time, presumably because I've overwritten that memory dozens of times.

I have a similar association between mountains in Scotland (specifically Munros) and subjects of books - a day out for me where I am walking by myself is probably about 1 audiobook long - (say 2.5 hour drive, 6 or 7 hours walking or more, 2.5 hour drive back).

So I can look at a mountain in the distance and the first thing that might come to mind is "History of Royal Navy", "Human body", "Agents fighting for the Polity/Culture" etc. for maybe 70 or Munros I've done by myself.

I do have specific associations though - such as a spot on Ben Lawers that will forever be associated in my mind with the repo market as I was listening to a book on the GFC. Why? Absolutely no idea, but I can almost hear that part of the book and remember that damp steep mountainside :-)

Navigation is the only reason you have a brain at all, if you think about it.

Just yesterday I heard the shop music from Ocarina of Time on a YouTube video. I immediately recalled the shop, the surrounding buildings and a few of the platforming paths. I also recalled a memory of playing the game with a friend at the time.

For me, all music functions in this way. Certain songs, even extremely upbeat songs, can cause me to tear up if I listen for too long. I can also listen to songs I associate with successful projects to increase my desire to start a project.

Truly fascinating.

I drive with podcasts, and find it frustrating (/peculiar) to try to find my way back to the snippet I found interesting because I keep getting location memories tied to each section.

Jim Collins talked about this once:

> You were talking about the values. And one of the things that is interesting, because I’m a very audio person, as we mentioned earlier as you and I were chatting, I was listening to Dare to Lead while I was driving and looking at Haystack Mountain here in North Boulder. One of the reasons I like audio books is because I like to be able to connect ideas to physically where I was when I heard that idea, which is how I remember them. So I will always associate these select two values with looking at Haystack Mountain on a beautiful December afternoon.

https://brenebrown.com/podcast/brene-with-jim-collins-on-cur...

>Does anyone else have this experience?

Oh absolutely. I'll be listening to podcasts while I do chores, walk to work, or work out, and if I rewind to a clip I've already heard, I'll instinctively visualise the place I was walking past or the set of weights I was lifting, lol.

That's indeed how memory palaces work, but funnily enough, when I try to apply that technique intentionally it never did work for me... x)

Yes! I wrote about my experiences with running and listening to audiobooks here, and we got a nice discussion about spatiality:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26596690

I've noticed this observation can be used in a useful memory hack. If you need to pick something up at the store (say, toothpaste), visualize toothpaste as if you're in that aisle. Next time you are in the store passing that aisle, the prompt tends to come up. It's worked without fail for me several times.

Correlates with all the mental tricks to associate data with other senses, the 'path-in-room' memorization tricks, or synesthesia kinds.

Reinforcing the brain seems to be about creating links. (not always though)

I worry that listening to audiobooks and podcasts negate the creativity boost that a walk provides. You're no longer walking and thinking but walking and consuming passive entertainment. The mind is not free to wander.

I dunno about that. I listen to book, podcasts, music... and my mind often wanders. Often I have to go back 10 minutes to pick up the last section I was paying attention to (if I care -- books, yes, podcasts, maybe, music no).

In my experience it’s more like a guided meditation. An audiobook (esp non-fiction) doesn’t tell you what to think on your run, it tells you what to think about.

This Sunday I read The Inner Game of Tennis on a single long run. It was fantastic.

No idea what the book said specifically, but the thought process it sparked and revelations it guided about my own psychology, how to approach teaching workshops, how to train team members, how to create psychological safety on teams, how to get out of a funk, what to focus on when writing books and articles, … wonderful. Amazing. Loved it. Everyone should read this book. Preferably while walking or running.

For exercise, I walk with audiobooks. They're great for this.

Figured out 30 years ago that I can't think independent thoughts with one of those going, though.

For thinking, I walk with nothing. If I want to remember something, I'll do something out of the ordinary as a reminder (e.g., transfer my keys or phone to a different pocket, or pick up a pebble and carry it) and write it down at the end of the walk. Notebooks seem to chase ideas away.

I have to agree with this, and recently I have stopped listening to music on my bike ride commute. It makes me think about things and give me the ability to actually progress on thoughts. I feel like this is more and more becoming something you have to actively do, with the easy distractions of social media and alike.

I have found that just by failing to clear my mind before exercise I can end up mentally crunching some problem (if the parts are sufficiently well specified that I can imagine them), which negates a lot of the mental benefit of exercise.

I will always remember that I was listening to Eleven Rings while driving from Portland to Smith Rock years ago. It's one of my favorite places and one of my favorite books. Those two things definitely became melded together in my mind.

This is true. On one of my routes, I will pass a corner and think "this is where I finished the Lord of the Rings" (the most recent time). My mind now associates places with sections of audiobooks.

So you are not alone. I don't know that I usually remember particular sentences, but I remember the experience of finishing (or hitting an important scene) in books at particular locations.

The method of loci is about imagining going down a known path while memorizing a list of items. It is an extremely powerful mnemotecnic device (improved versions are used in world competitions and on stage).

What you stumbled upon is the existing mental process that is emulated by the method. I am only aware of two description of this (binding place to information while you are in the place): a Greek legend and Australian aboriginals practices.

Location's ability to trigger memories is why we say things like "In the first place". Roman senators used this trick to memorize lengthy orations by "bookmarking" key parts of their speech to physical locations and then would "walk" through it live.

What do you think animals use memory for? Mapping terrain & connecting it with life preserving data. That's why best memorising technics are sequences and memory palace. Walking you add spacing splitting materiał binding it with other locatin and when you repeat the same walk path repeat learnt material in sequence memorising it stronger by retrieving/recall. Also while walking you use slow thinking system and balanced regular breathing improving cognition. Plato was walking, guy who wrote thinking fast and slow too while working with collaborator. this should help: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5780548/

I remember words I've learned in a similar way, with many of them bringing back the social situation, location, weather, emotions, etc. at the time when I learned them. I would love a VR product for language learning.

There’s actually a huge volume of research on spatial components mapping to memory. Check out the book: Moonwalking with Einstein for proper citations.

Lately I've been walking 20 km per day (~12.5 mi). Takes at least 3.5 hours. I try not to listen to any audio -- I just let my mind wander.

To step it up a notch, I put on a weighted backpack (i.e. ruck). I'm typically carrying 30 lbs, sometimes 50. This raises the heart rate and roughly doubles the caloric burn. Low injury risk, too. Michael Easter's book "Comfort Crisis" has a nice chapter on rucking.

I just wish it was easier to contact nature on my walks. I live in a big urban centre, so it's not always easy. But at least urban centers can facilitate social walking -- I've found some fantastic Meetup groups where I can partake in social hikes.

Can't say enough good things about walking/hiking/rucking. It's foundational to the human experience. Get outside, everyone :)

> 20 km per day (~12.5 mi)

That is some serious distance. I remember thinking I would be able to do at least 25-35 km per day, a few years ago when I walked parts of the camino de Santiago in Spain. Blisters and destroyed feet in just a few days, not ever reaching 30 km per day I think.. How long did it take you to get used to this kind of distance daily?

Does the quality of shoe matters here ?

Yes, but in my experience the quality of your socks matters much more. A single wrinkle is gonna give you a nice blister within 5km. Get nice socks and pack blister bandages. Those things are like magic.

Are there any socks you recommend? I've had good luck with Darn Tough socks, but I'd be interested in something better if available.

From my adjacent experience (ultrarunning / multi-day races), after trying a bunch of different brands, I've settled on Drymax. By far the best blister resistance! They're really good at keeping feet, well, dry, which helps a lot against chafing.

If you have particular hot spots, I'd also recommend applying some foot cream like Trail Toes. I always use it for runs over ~30km.

Merino wool socks are definitely what I'd recommend for trekking.

Socks with a high percentage of wool are amazing if you've got even remotely sweaty feet. You can be having a complete swamp in your shoes and still have warm feet.

As an anecdote, I stopped buying "normal" socks from regular clothing stores completely.

All I wear is hiking labeled socks from sports stores. Greatly reduces wrinkles even if you go for the cheap ones. (Decathlon's store brand for example, but that's EU only i think).

+1 for Compeed. A miracle bandaid.

Absolutely. Not only the size, but the general shape and the technologies of the shoe. For walking/running (not hiking as the parent post is discussing) I like the Ultra Boost line of shoes with their "torsion system", breathable knit upper material, and lightweight foam outer sole. Comfiest shoes I own.

I think in my experience the size of the shoe matters hugely, more than the quality. Slightly too loose or slightly too tight will lead to blisters if you do an unusual (for you) amount of walking.

Probably but it's one of many factors.

When I (not parent) went to the Camino de Santiago, I was already an experienced hiker (I could certainly walk 30kms in a day and I had done it many times) and I brought a good pair of shoes with me (that I used before without getting any blisters).

But my feet were just not ready to take 30km per day for many, many days in a row. It's one thing to do it just during weekends, doing it every day is a different beast.

Eventually it got better, but it took a while for me to get used to it (and a whole lot of Compeed plasters).

My advice for anyone who is going, would be to start gradually (maybe 10-15 km/day) and then over time go for longer and longer walks.

Edit: I totally agree with the sibling comment about socks being just as important, if not more, than shoes

This was something I heard very often from fellow pilgrims on the camino. That the constant abuse, really is something else. There is a ton of shoe stores along the camino, and plenty of people that "just have to wait a bit" for their feet to catch up. I guess both shoes and socks are important; but certainly never do what I did and go to Spain with brand new shoes...

Probably, but I wore brand new shoes the first time I tried walking the camino, and that's a big no-no :-)

I'm going to go against the grain here but probably not. I walked 500+ km (300 miles) on the Camino Del Norte in a pair of 20£ under armour running shoes I bought 3 years ago. I only had one blister that went away when I put a blister plaster on it.

I have heard of the camino de Santiago from someone planning to do it. I just looked it up and it says you can choose one of many routes. Camino Frances being the most popular. Feel like this will be on my bucket list if I can ever get that fit :-).

> I just looked it up and it says you can choose one of many routes.

Yes, I've done small parts of the route on two different occasions. First time I quit due to problems with my feet, the second time I quit after problems with the heat :-)

I never planned to go the full camino, as most of these routes are quite long. The one that starts in France is about 800 km (500 miles) I think, so that will be a full summer holiday and probably a few weeks off work at best. Not ideal to walk during the height of summer either, as the heat can be brutal.

I had a good baseline fitness from other activities, so was able to pretty much launch into 20 km daily.

Blisters happened at the beginning. Investing in Darn Tough socks helps.

> Investing in Darn Tough socks helps.

Thanks for the advice. In the army we got the opposite advice, they said we must never use woolen socks when we did the 30 km march, always use cotton they said...

> Lately I've been walking 20 km per day (~12.5 mi)

This is crazy distance, keep it up.

That's a lot of time spent walking, how does a typical day look for you in terms of work?

People who spend a lot of time in mindless remote meetings (the kind that proliferated during the pandemic) can take most of them while walking. There’s a ton of resources on walking meetings going back many years, some are geared towards just grabbing the attendees and all going for a walk, whereas the tendency these days is for remote / video / audio meetings.

There are even tools that transcribe meeting audio and try to extract summaries, agendas and actions from the discussed material.

Awesome advice on the weighted backpack to keep the calories burning.

Do you work full-time as well? How do you fit that in your schedule?

I'm doing 20-30 km on free days and 1-10 km on most work days for the last 2 years, but not nearly as fast (my average speed went from 4.5 to 5.1 km/h in that time). Are you sure about the doubling of caloric burn?

Cause I started when I was 130 kg and now I'm 90-100 kg and I measured calories in and how much I walked, and calculated the calories burned/km walked depending on weight and it's basically linear for me (roughly 60 kcal/km at 100 kg). It would be very weird if just 30 kg doubled the caloric burn, maybe the speed makes the difference?

At any rate I agree it's great, it completely changed my life. It's very hard to be frustrated after a 5-hour walk.

You are very lucky. After walking about 6km every day for few months arches of my feet started to hurt. Basically overuse injury. I probably should be varying shoes and places (surfaces) I walk on.

> 20 km per day

I'm not sure my body could handle that (my hips would need a day to recover from a 20 km walk).

I'm in my mid 50s, so I'd like to believe my age is part of that.

I do about 7 km / day, which still takes time.

I've probably done everything mentioned here (thinking, audiobooks, music, walking with my kids, etc.).

Lately, I've been simply listening for birds. I've gotten pretty good at identifying several species by vocalization and it has the added benefit of putting me "in tune" with my environment.

> (my hips would need a day to recover from a 20 km walk). > > I'm in my mid 50s, so I'd like to believe my age is part of that.

Nah, it's just lack of practice. I turned fifty during my walk across Europe from Dublin to Istanbul. I'm 55 now and can happily cover 30 km every few months.

Try going for an extra ten or twenty minutes on your regular walk, and when that feels good, add another ten or twenty minutes. Keep going until you can knock out 30 km in a day's walk, with a break for lunch. Good luck, and enjoy it!

I'm an avid walker (I guess rucker, considering I always wear my backpack). My worst is when passing cars stop and offer me a ride. Apparently it's socially acceptable/normal to run, though.

I started doing this and got to walking ~10-15km per session, but boy does it take a long time. It gets old fast. Music helps but at some point the time cost is just too high. I started swimming instead and it feels like 30 minutes in the water is roughly equivalent to 2 hours walking, though I'm not a very good swimmer.

There is definitely a risk for injury walking. Aside from the obvious risk of tripping over, you can also mess up your feet and your back, especially when carrying weight. I didn't have any knee problems but apparently that's another risk.

I don't know about creative thinking ... but consistent walking sure as hell helped jump-start my running life. Here's my little story. I'm 37 and was never a runner, but last October a friend dragged me out for a run. We ran a 5K straight-up (at ~6m:30s/KM). It's not a "couch to 5K", as I'm lean and bicycle a lot ("zone 2" cardio) as part of my daily life, eat healthy, and put in many walks and some hikes over the past 3 years. So the "infrastructure" is in place.

This year I ran two half marathons (one in Bruges last month), and went for another "half-marathon forest hike" last weekend:

I had no idea I could run these longer distances, and was not even planning to run. I activated this "latent" potential by a happy accident. Earlier this February, when talking about running with a friend of a friend, she casually said "why don't you register for the half-marathon at this gorgeous nature trail[1]?" I said, "hmm, I never ran more than 7K, and the half-marathon is only 50 days away." "Just register, you'll do fine!", she said. I did register, and diligently trained for exactly about 45 days.

Lo and behold! I completed the first half marathon in April in 2h:12m; and the second one last month in 2h:9m. Both of them without stopping. I'm still surprised by myself. If that acquaintance hadn't pushed me a little bit, I wouldn't have bothered with half-marathons. Now I'm hooked. I'm calling my next half-marathon "cracking 2" (running it under 2 hours). Some runners here might recognize the term "breaking 2" ;-)

Edit: added the missing crucial word "half" (!) at the beginning of the fourth paragraph - thanks, vanilla_nut

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonian_Forest

Inspiring! I am on a similar journey as well.

I haven't heard the term "zone 2" cardio -- can you expand on that?

Zones refer to heart rate zones. You run at different intensities (in different zones) to achieve different things.

Zone 2 is your easy pace. The pace you do most of your running at. It's not so fast where you need much recovery but it's fast enough to achieve the adaptations you need.

Here's part of a talk by famed running coach Jack Daniels on the benefits of easy running: https://youtu.be/veAQ73OJdwY

Subtract your age from 180. Run at that heart rate. Another formula 0.7*(HR max — HR at rest) + HR at rest

If you don't believe in formulas, run at a pace in which you can hold a conversation or speak a few sentences without losing your breath.

Read up on heart-rate zones; this is a decent post[1]. Basically, you should be able to comfortably hold a conversation throughout the run. I learnt that many serious athletes train a lot for it. Improving zone-2 fitness apparently contributes in a non-trivial way to zone 3-5 fitness! But don't get too hung up on these stats (I didn't bother at all for the first 5 months of running), but follow that golden rule of "listen to your body" to differentiate "good pain" vs. "bad pain".

[1] https://www.polar.com/blog/running-heart-rate-zones-basics/

> I had no idea I could run these longer distances, and was not even planning to run.

I know I can't run. Never could. My lungs just close up after even a short run and the rest of my body promptly follows.

I could walk though but despite walking few kilometers each day this summer best I could do was squeeze a minute or two of running into my walking.

And even walking ended when my feet arches began to hurt from overuse. Since then I stopped walking regularly and switched to 'barefoot' shoes and my left foot pretty much healed but the overuse injury in the right one pops back up when I walk for about an hour. I am not overweight and have high feet arches.

I hear you. The first rule is: "don't injure yourself". On feet: try out "Superfeet" insoles (not affiliated). I recently learnt about 'em and been trying for a month; they're working well for me. I have a flat left-foot, and it starts paining after 18K. And I limp a little bit for a day with pain, and it goes away. I hate this, and have lived with it for too long. Finally, I began with a specialist (podiatrist) to see if I can find a long-term fix.

Be aware of the dangers that cortison can do to your bones though. Defeat asthma today, wrestle with a half disolved spine tomorrow..

Jesus. I thought breaking 3 was crushing it for amateurs. Congrats. What sort of training do you do to progress? I’m relatively fit (swim/ride/squash) but haven’t run much for a long time. Now doing 1-2 10ks a week but no idea how to move further

Breaking 3 hours is crushing it for a full marathon. The post you're replying to is talking about a half-marathon.

Yes, indeed. At a crucial place I missed the word "half"; corrected it. Sorry for the sloppiness, once again.

Firstly, sorry for the bad thinko at a crucial occurrence in my first comment; I was talking about half marathons all along. I'm still a novice runner; only one year in. :-). For both the half marathons, I implemented the below bog-standard rough plan (no fancy high-interval training or anything like that—it helps, though!):

- "Rest" on Mondays - walk 6K or bike 10K

- 7K run on Tuesdays

- "Rest" on Wednesdays - 10K biking

- 7K run on Thursdays

- Rest on Friday; just daily life walking/bicycling

- 5K run on Saturdays

- 10K run on Sundays[1]

Most importantly, pay attention to diet (a whole another beast). As the saying goes, "you can't out-run a bad diet!"

And here's[2] my silly 'retro' of my most recent half marathon.

[1] When training for a race, I gradually increase the Sunday distance to 13K, 15K, and 18K; reserve the best for the race day. "Taper off" the intensity of running in the last week before the race. (Specific to my situation, in retrospect, all the city bicycling I was doing as part of daily life here must've contributed to my running too. So take that "hidden training" into account too.)

[2] https://kashyapc.fedorapeople.org/half-m-Bruges-retro.html

Thanks so much for your plan! Much appreciated! I'll give it a bit of a whirl!

Glad to be useful. If you're putting in 1-2 10Ks/week, you can absolutely train for a half marathon—assuming no existing serious injuries. Also try coming up with your own bespoke plan (including experimenting with diet - keep an informal log) that's based on your unique needs and situation; it can be empowering.

> I completed the first marathon in April in 2h:12m; and the second one last month in 2h:9m.

Fyi: you might want to add the "half" word from earlier in your post into this sentence as well. 2 hours is a very respectable half marathon pace. For a full marathon, it's Olympian!

Glad to hear you're enjoying running. I also transitioned from "long walks almost every day" to "wow i can actually run pretty well" and I have just one piece of advice...

Don't get too into the stats. It's much more fun if you don't agonize over the optimizations, IMO.

Oh, and if you normally trail run with headphones and listen to music or podcasts, every once in a while try going without the headphones. I find I have my best ideas on runs where all I can hear is nature.

(Oops! Added the crucial missing word, "half". I thought I checked carefully, bad me. Sorry for the sloppiness. Yes, full marathon is something else! )

Nice work yourself on your transition, go you! :-)

Two hours for a full marathon was the "Breaking 2" project[1] that Eliud Kipchoge finally achieved [in Vienna, a separate event]. It's inhumanly lung-busting. I wouldn't get there in a million lifetimes!

On stats: totally! I'm not at all obsessing over it; just using high-level stats as a moderate motivation. I also don't look at my watch (only use it for running) at every lap or anything like that. Headphones: I have a rule of "no music at all" for running. It's my way to tame the inner dragons. (For walks, I do use the headphones, though. And you're totally right on mixing it up; neuroscience backs up your suggestion too.)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breaking2

You mean, you ran HALF-marathons in 2:12, 2:09, right? (a big difference there)

Yes, I mentioned the words "half-marathon" and "half marathon" combined seven times in my original post. :-) (Only the first occurrence in the last para had an unfortunate thinko, I acknowledged it and fixed it immediately.)

FWIW, I shared the story because going from "no runner" a year ago to "finishes half marathons without stopping" with a modest pace might still be interesting (sorry for bragging :-)).

Well done

I do my best thinking while walking. I wish more people did the same.. just the basic idea of letting a thought sink in for awhile. I will say that walking and staring at your phone is NOT the same thing as walking with your thoughts alone. Hell, I don't even put headphones on anymore while walking.

I'm the same way when cycling. Solved many of the tougher problems I've faced while commuting to and from work. I have yet to take the bike out with the only intention of clearing my mind, though.

Do it

I noticed that I often hold conversations in my head while biking. It's quite strange: I start cycling a route I know by heart (work commute, for example), and after a few minutes, the conversations start. Last week I avoided a discussion with another person because I knew my argumentation had a serious flaw, and I couldn't find a way to argue around it. After biking to the supermarket on Saturday and holding that exact conversation in my head, I suddenly had it.

Almost like image training from DBZ

https://dragonball.fandom.com/wiki/Image_Training

"Sit as little as possible; do not believe any idea that was not born in the open air and of free movement — in which the muscles do not also revel… Sitting still… is the real sin against the Holy Ghost." -Nietzsche

In fact, he composed most of his works during long walks:

"I would walk for six or eight hours a day, composing thoughts that I would later jot down on paper."

Darwin had a special Thinking path [1] he would take to start his day

[1] - http://www.wildlifewonder.co.uk/darwins-thinking-path

Assuming the home they mention is Downe House, I have walked in his steps many times and not even known it

Hayes to Downe is a beautiful walk on the very edge of SE London, much of it technically inside London while being genuinely rural

I have constructed something like this also - never knew Darwin beat me to the idea!

He also said:

"It is only ideas gained from walking that have any worth." - Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols, 1889

For anyone interested, read on the Peripatetic School, and the practice of walking and talking. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peripatetic_school

I have always loved the idea of a College course being taught while strolling the campus (for certain subjects).

I once wrote a work of philosophy that was written on foot and edited while sitting.

And it appears someone wrote a book on the topic here: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18339944-a-philosophy-of...

From the page:

"In A Philosophy of Walking, leading thinker Frédéric Gros charts the many different ways we get from A to B - the pilgrimage, the promenade, the protest march, the nature ramble - and reveals what they say about us.

Gros draws attention to other thinkers who also saw walking as something central to their practice. On his travels he ponders Thoreau's eager seclusion in Walden Woods; the reason Rimbaud walked in a fury, while Nerval rambled to cure his melancholy. He shows us how Rousseau walked in order to think, while Nietzsche wandered the mountainside to write. In contrast, Kant marched through his hometown every day, exactly at the same hour, to escape the compulsion of thought. Brilliant and erudite, A Philosophy of Walking is an entertaining and insightful manifesto for putting one foot in front of the other."

We are meant to walk. Sample size one, but I increased my walking from from maybe two miles per day to about seven miles a day about two years ago and essentially everything in my life has improved. There are so many benefits but if you choose your routes wisely, it allows for a kind of mental improvisation that is hard to do when sitting down. You can't write anything down, so you are forced to allow your thoughts to wander. This creates a kind of harmony because both you and your thoughts are in motion. Unfortunately most American towns and cities are indifferent at best and hostile at worst to walking, but I sense that this may change over the coming decades.

What's your pace when walking? Do you walk fast like you're going to some place? Or do you walk slower than your default walking speed?

My default walking speed is brisk but comfortable. I walk usually two to three hours per day, sometimes broken up across multiple walks but often in one go. According to my phone, my average pace is roughly 3.5mph (but I'm not sure how accurate that is). I also live in a hilly area and spend relatively little time on flat ground but hills don't seem to affect my walking pace nearly as much as they affect cycling pace.

Where do you get time for this? If I were to try this, between work, travel and chores, I'd have zero time for anything else.

not parent but i just do this during work

Some work allow you to walk while solving problems.

I am living off of past earnings, don't travel and have basically no chores because I live modestly and am willing to tolerate some clutter/mess in my apartment. There is nothing I value in life more than my time and walking has proven to be one of the most valuable uses of my time. In many ways, it is the foundation for everything else I do.

Same here. I went from 2-5k to 15k, in some days even 20k steps per day.

I incorporated walking into my daily habits. Before I would bike, take the subway. Now I simply walk. If there is a call, I dial in with no video.

Mid-sentence I thought you'd walk 15km per day. That was a brief moment of awe.

I walk 20km/day and do a 90min cardio/weights workout. No rest days. All comes down to conditioning and your baseline.

How do you have enough time for this? 20km/day is around 4 hours of walking even at above average speeds

No kids and never worked on someone else's schedule (mid 40s). I do a lot of email and conceptional work while walking so it's technically not leisure time.

Same here. I mostly work while walking.

But, I do have a family and meetings for my clients.

How can one work while walking?

> No kids

Ah, that's the secret. Too late for me. :)

I truly admire you. I have managed to put myself on a 8km/day weekdays and 15km/day weekends schedule for last 5+ years and know how much effort is needed to do that.

Yeah 20km/day is crazy. I am wondering: other than post man, what are great jobs that you can do where you walk almost all day.

I have personally never enjoyed walking as a time to think or mentally relax. If anything, it stresses me out as my mind wonders around, obsesses, etc. I find that doing more strenuous activities or activities that require more attention, such as various yard and gardening work, do more to clear my mind.

It’s the same thing with lifting weights or running. They are so monotonous and boring that I would much rather do hard physical labor or some sporting activity that gets mind going on some other activity.

I am lifting weights to help combat fatigue so I sort of "have to" do it as a medicine. I treat it like a time to chill out. At least half the time is resting, and I only use the phone to check the time. Get some good music going and it is a fun way to relax and not think of much.

I also refuse to be there much more than 1 hour. Years ago I used to have these 2 hour sessions of all kinds of stuff with half hour treadmill at the end, and you know what ... it gets boring and I give up. Better to do an hour 2-3 times a week for life than a ambitious thing that I give up.

Yea, I really need to get back into, especially as I am not getting any younger and working from has really dampered my physical activity. I still won't like it. Never did, even when I was in peak condition.

I found martial arts (Muay Thai and Capoeira in my case) to be a good way to stay healthy. I always found exercise boring and unfulfilling, but with martial arts I was "Learning a Skill", and needed to get fitter and stronger in order to improve. Just a bit of a psychological trick I used on myself to keep at it.

Weightlifting is the only one that's ever really clicked for me, and I think it's cause I feel like I'm making some sort of obvious progress. Getting strong and being able to lift more, seeing muscles grow, pushing myself and exhausting my muscles, knowing I'm getting those micro-tears that will heal back even stronger.

Plus being at a gym, around other people who are working out feels motivating. Including more attractive women around than I'm used to ever seeing in day-to-day life!

Maybe you are a social sports person. Football, tennis, etc.

One non-social sport that I found I enjoyed was putting some globes on and punching a punching bag. I have not taken classes and probably I am doing everything wrong, but it releases a lot of adrenaline.

I discovered the 12 hour walk from a podcast (https://12hourwalk.com/) where the idea is to really contemplate and analyze your life by walking alone, without any music or distractions, for 12 hours. I've yet to try it, and am thinking maybe doing a shortened version at first (3 hours maybe?).

But I could see how it would be a way to wrestle with your thoughts.

Try a vipassana meditation retreat ;-)

Solvitur ambulando

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

Over the years, I've found that the best ideas come to me when walking to the bathroom and back. Especially when I'm trying to come up with a good solution to a difficult programming problem. Just getting up from the screen and engaging in some mindless physical activity seems to cause my subconscious to spit out surprising insights that I wouldn't have come up with if I had been 100% focused on the problem at hand. It's really a bit of a mystery how the human brain sometimes works this way.

I’m studying for interviews. Also unfortunately don’t have adhd medication for another week.

I have to take a walking break at least every hour to make any progress. It really is a life saver for me right now.

I'm in a similar boat, I find even a 10 minute walk with no phone in my pocket can help the things I've been studying coalesce into understanding.

Every morning, the first thing I do, is take a 5K walk (just got up, and will do it in a few minutes). Takes most of an hour.

I use it to “triage” the day’s tasks, I often “fix” bugs, on these walks, and apply the fixes, immediately upon getting back.

I also find it's a good time to develop architectures for my projects.

WFM, YMMV

Walking is probably one of the best things you can do for your brain, as it elevates synthesis and expression of BDNF. I wouldn't be surprised if the effect was immediate, while one's physical activity is going on.

https://www.applemust.com/here-is-why-apples-steve-jobs-love...

"Here is why Apple’s Steve Jobs loved to walk and so should you"

thanks for sharing

I’m sorry Steve Jobs was perfectly chiseled to deliver apple products but to take any other part of his life as inspiration is just wrong. He tried to cure his cancer with carrots and abused his daughter. we should stop idolizing him.

"Whether one is outdoors or on a treadmill, walking improves the generation of novel yet appropriate ideas, and the effect even extends to when people sit down to do their creative work shortly after."

This is actually quite profound. I actually associate walking with the surroundings. It's always pleasant to walk in a forest, or where there is lush greenery. If the surrounding does not matter, then I should stop finding excuses to not walk. An urban environment seems to make no difference.

Some related reading I've ammased about the topic over the time:

https://lithub.com/on-the-link-between-great-thinking-and-ob...

https://psyche.co/ideas/talking-out-loud-to-yourself-is-a-te...

Walking, running, cooking... In fact anything other than engaging with the creative task in hand, are known to aid creatively. The thing they have in common is that they are all physical activities which requires little mental demand.

These habits are the stock in trade of jobbing artists and designers.

Many of my students in London art schools seem to believe that a short cut to creativity is drugs. What they are missing is the engagement of the body in the thinking/feeling process.

I'm a certified member of the Peripatetic school [1]. The ancients knew it and I know it -- I walk therefore I am. It's by the walking alone I set my mind to motion.

Needless to say that my downstair neighbours hate me for it. I guess philosophers were always ostracised ;)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peripatetic_school

Reminds me of Houellebecq: "A writer needs to walk," said Houellebecq [...] "Trying to write if you have no possibility of walking for a few hours at a brisk pace is extremely unadvisable. [...] The accumulated nervous tension of thoughts and images (conjured at the writing table) will not dissolve and continue to turn in the poor head of the author, who becomes rapidly irritable if not mad."

I adopted a retired greyhound about 6 months ago and now walk about 200km a month with her. I used to do a lot of cycling and did lots of thinking on long rides, but after 3 crashes this year I'm now riding a lot less and find myself explaining things out loud to the dog on our walks (particuarly the early morning walk). It helps set me up for the day.

Walking is hunting. We were, we are hunters on the savannah, we watched, we searched, we centered in on something.

Have a stick with you and a notebook, a paper one. The paper notebook reminds you of the prey and provides the method to scribble idea hooks.

Think of the solutions tried so far as trail. Go on walks hungry, do not eat while walking.

This could be part of why work from home doesn't work for me. I missed having spacious work areas, given my crammed apartment unit. I can simulate the walking for travel to work but that comes in bursts at set times, unlike just walking within a building anytime I feel like it.

Might be a silly question, but why not walk outdoors? I find this a lot more enjoyable, though I guess it’d depend a lot on how foot-friendly your local area is.

I do this every now and then, but this becomes a conscious decision with tradeoffs when I work from home, so I cannot do it daily. I'm not immediately surrounded by conducive walking areas, so there's a threshold of effort and time commitment before reaching the better places. When I go to a workplace, there's no decision to make I just have to walk without question.

My humble suggestion: dress up for walking every time you have to leave your apartment for anything. What made it work for me was taking out the trash. Once the trash is out, and I am out on the street with the right clothes and the right shoes for walking (or even running!) then it is much easier to do it.

It's not always about force of will, it can be about small changes in your environment.

Hehe, in my daily activity at work, after daily meeting, i always spend 30 mins walking around, only then i can feel burst in productivity and thinking. I don't know why, but i feel it works for me.

Beethoven did most of his composing on long rambles through the countryside. He carried notebooks in his pocket to jot down ideas as they came to him, many of which have been preserved.

I walk in silence and let my mind wonder. This has been more productive than any focused activity.

A much needed pause to the constant effort to pack more and more into my brain.

I watch TV series on an iPad while power walking on my gyms treadmill.

It's definitely better than sitting on my couch watching series, but I do wonder if I should modify this routine.

Try dancing, especially with others! Some of my best creative ideas have sprung from attending large improvisational rock/jazz/funk concerts.

I walk about 20-30 km every weekend. Used to do it more often before work from home.

It's a fantastic opportunity to think and blow some air

I've developed disdain for the hordes of disgusting fucks who never get off their cars because I have to live in the hell their laziness have created. Bad air, excess noise, lots of space taken. All this because they have to drive. The vast majority of cars is clearly not needed. Merely wanted

Is there a second paper about showering?

Is there any data on how long the walk should be? A quick 5 or 10 minutes to stretch the legs?

It's not the walking itself, it's just that walking gets you away from other people

I disagree.

Walking is generally a combination of occupying a bit of your mind plus movement. Folks can minimize the movement stuff and get similar results.

This is the reason folks get ideas when they drive, wash dishes, shower, walk, crochet, do martial arts... Basically, any slightly boring repetitive task that involves just a bit of movement and a just enough mental stimulation.

There must be something else too. I had zero live contact with people when I started walking and it had some effect on my mind. I think getting tou away from screens is important part as well. Also it's small amount of bodily suffering you are inflicting on yourself which is bound to influence mind in some way.

Nietzsche wrote that the only things worth writing down come when walking.

I've always thought that it's a form of animal cruelty to have people stuck in offices forced to sit through all meetings etc. when many 1 on 1 or other small meetings for creative purposes could be conducted while out walking.

I agree with you — some of my best meetings have been walking — but it's less natural in the era of remote work.

If your neighborhood is walkable and decently quiet, walking on a phone call can work for 1:1s.

I've had some very nice phone meetings with either or both parties walking. Some with a good old fashioned cellphone call, and some with FaceTime Audio and decent headphones for startlingly good voice quality.

Also good for those all-hands or update meetings where you're just listening.

I take about half of my direct reports for 1:1 outside when I can. Seattle winters sometimes makes that pretty tough, of course...

does cycling count? walking hurts my back.

Unfortunately, you possible just need to walk more then and focus on your core muscles. I have the exact same thing and the only way to stop my back from aching is to focus on tightening my abs. Doing some basic ab and core exercises like planks, superman, etc will probably help. You need to do them correctly though and rally focus on tightening the right muscles, otherwise it'll hurt the back even more.

If you have the means, I'd probably recommend visiting a physical therapist, or a personal trainer who specializes in core strengthening.

The great thing about cycling is that it's low impact so it's a good way to get back into exercise. If you can't walk well, aging is going to be even more unpleasant than it has to be so I'd recommend working on strengthening your body so that it can handle walking again. Cycling is far better than not exercising at all, but I would recommend walking to anyone over cycling if possible.

For many years, I cycled > 10 hours per week. But these days I only walk and haven't ridden a bike in over a year. Even though cycling can be a lot of fun, I don't really miss it. When walking you have a different relationship with the environment. You feel like a part of it. Cycling is much closer to driving than walking. You are just passing through. It's also far more dangerous so you have to focus more on the road which allows your mind to wander less than you can while walking. There are things that you notice while walking that you would never see on a bike. I once watched an epic battle between a caterpillar and a wasp. You realize there is so much more going on in the world than what we tend to focus on.

haha i'd have stopped to watch that battle too.

since i live deep inner city i dont enjoy walking along the pavements/tarmac. to get to the woods i have to cycle. maybe i should get there and then walk a few miles.

Walking shouldn't hurt your back and its very worrying that it does, you should look into some resistance exercise.

i've started doing some yoga recently and in just a week i'm feeling a new flexibility in my back muscles.

so i started yoga cos another friend of mine recommended it after i 'seized up' my back suddenly..it happened like innocuously me trying to pickup something from the floor..i can feel a pull and im like oh shit this is gonna get worse and i cant move properly for a week kind of thing. and it does. i blame it on potatoes and cauliflower cos i seem to get it a few days after i eat them dishes and lot of sitting and reading and programming. luckily it does go away in a week or so and im like as if nothing happened. but going thru it feels like im bugg3red.

cycling alone doesnt cut it i guess.

I would go to a doctor just in case.

A friend of mine spent most of a year having intermittent back pain and it turns out that his problem was that he had developed fructose intolerance. His pain was not coming from his internal back as he thought, but from his inflamed intestines, which happened very frequently since fructose is present in a lot of foods.

if walking hurts your back then you probably need to lose belly fat. Even though I am thin (6'4", 190 pounds) I have found that with an ideal diet (mostly red meat) and some moderate exercise I can lose 10 pounds of belly fat and my back pain drops off a cliff. If I get down to 170 pounds then I have almost no back pain. At 160 pounds I feel like an elevated being.

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