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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.

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 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).

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.

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...

> 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'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.

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

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 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!

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 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 :-)

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.

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.

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.

>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)

> 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.

> _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!

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/

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.

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.

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

>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.

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.

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

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 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.

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)

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

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