- How To Stay Curious
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- All Walking Special: Backwards Walking / When Is Best / Walking Meditation / Erling Kaggey
All Walking Special: Backwards Walking / When Is Best / Walking Meditation / Erling Kaggey
How To Stay Curious
July 24, 2024 • Estimated Reading Time: 13 minutes
Curiosity is the superpower for the second half of our lives — it keeps us learning, it keeps us asking questions, and it increases our self-awareness.
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Curiously Counting: HTSC #7
Two answers this week on the topic of walking.
A why question, why take a walk in the evening, or the morning…
WHY… | walk?I grew up in a family with no car, so walking was the norm for me for a long time, and that idea of it as a norm never truly abated even after getting vehicles of my own. The number of steps you should walk every day to start seeing benefits to your health is lower than previously thought, according to the largest analysis to investigate this. The study found that walking at least 3967 steps a day started to reduce the risk of dying from any cause, and 2337 steps a day reduced the risk of dying from diseases of the heart and blood vessels (cardiovascular disease). The more you walk, the lower your risk of early death, even if you walk fewer than 5,000 steps - via Science Daily I started this newsletter in part because I see curiosity as a superpower as noted in the opening quote (for the first half of life too though). Evidently I’ve been developing another superpower all these years with my walking too AND conveniently these are two superpowers that work well together: Study after study after study has proved what we feel, intuitively, in our gut: Walking is good for us. Beneficial for our joints and muscles; astute at relieving tension, reducing anxiety and depression; a boon to creativity, likely; slows the aging process, maybe; excellent at prying our screens from our face, definitely. Shane O’Mara, a professor of experimental brain research in Dublin, has called walking a “superpower,” claiming that walking, and only walking, unlocks specific parts of our brains, places that bequeath happiness and health. The Next Walk You Take Could Change Your Life - via NYT |
 | Worthy read if you want to go back and go deeper: |
WHO… | is Erling Kaggey?The article title below almost turned me off looking at this one, but I’m glad I didn’t, as he’s an interesting fellow being “the first person to complete the Three Poles Challenge—Kagge walked to the North Pole in 1990, the South Pole in 1993, and the summit of Mount Everest (the “third pole”) in 1994”. Take New York, for instance. People always believe they save time by taking a taxi. Let's say you take a taxi and it takes 10 minutes when walking would take 20. Mathematically, you save 10 minutes. But in those 10 minutes in a taxi, you didn't experience anything. If you walk in New York, nothing great is going to happen, necessarily, but something is going to happen. That makes those 20 minutes so much more rich than the 10 minutes in the taxi. So I'm not walking because I think it's better than driving. I'm walking because life is getting a little bit richer than if you drive. Why walking is the key to being more productive - via GQ UK His book on walking Walking: One Step At a Time: |
A: Rustam QBic / S: WHUDAT / L: Acapulco
WHERE… | is best to walk?Outdoors! But if that doesn't work for you: Are walking pads worth it? - via Time Short answer here: yes! |
WHEN… | is the best time to walk?This one depends… While some things are time-dependent, however, walking is one activity that’s good for you whenever and however you do it. Whether you choose to go for a long stroll in the morning, plug in your fold-out treadmill while you’re on mute in afternoon meetings or prefer to bookend your day with an evening constitutional, walking can increase your lifespan, boost your mood and improve your bone health. But if we’re interested in really getting the most out of our walks, is there a ‘best’ time to get those steps in? What’s the best time of day to walk? All the benefits of having a dawn, lunchtime or dusk stroll - via Stylist |
A: Myron Laban / S: MASA / L: Chicago
WHAT… | is a walk and talk?I’m not sure where I first stumbled upon these as I follow Jason Kottke, Kevin Kelly, Craig Mod, and Derek Sivers - and they’ve all shared the walk and talk they took together but I’ll give Derek credit via his post: Walk and Talk. A walk-and-talk is a moveable salon. A small group of people walk together for a week, having casual conversations side-by-side during most of the day. In the evening the group sits down to an intense hours-long discussion centered on a daily chosen topic by those present. A moderator keeps the conversation on that day’s single topic to sharpen it and make it memorable. To focus on conversations while walking, participants carry only day-packs, and eat locally prepared meals. The walks are not strenuous and to keep it even more inspiring, they take place in storied environments that are walker-friendly, such as footpaths in England, Japan, and Spain. By the end of the week, every person present has walked about 100 km and has had deep conversations with all the others. - via How To Walk & Talk PDF Here’s a summary of a Bali walk and talk, with some tips, from Craig Slow Time and the Bali Walk and Talk |
HOW… | to walk properly? And backwards!?When I first heard the phrase “everybody walks wrong”, I’ll admit I raised an eyebrow. [Me too! - Rob]. For decades I’ve been getting from A to B with a decent degree of success – why make changes now? … “Most people appreciate there are skills and techniques you can employ to get better at a tennis serve, golf drive or front crawl in swimming,” Joanna Hall says. “But when we come to walk, we don’t really think about it.” A study that examined the changes proposed in the above article found: In 2013, Hall’s research with the Sport and Exercise Science Research Center, showed that those following the plan for 28 days increased their walking speed by 23%. On average, there was also a 2% reduction in their weight, 3% decrease in their estimated body fat percentage and skinfold measurements at the waist dropped by 15%. The study also found “improved posture and skeletal alignment”, leading to “noticeable reductions in the force experienced at the knee and ankle joints”. HOW TO WALK BACKWARDS |
A: Alex Senna / S: Cup of Jo / L: ?
Curious Counting: The Solution for #7
7 Reasons To Take a Walk After Dinner - via Vogue (also, the inspiration for the walking focus in this issue)
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Walking benefits: 7 reasons why walking before work in the morning is so good for your mental health - via what feels like the 7th time this issue, Stylist.
Next week it’s back to a variety of topics, until then take some walks and stay curious!
Rob
P.S. - Issue 12 is going to be music focused, and I’ll probably start including some links that served as the soundtrack to compiling each issue/to new music with that issue, but for fans who miss the White Stripes, you’ll want to track down Jack White’s new No Name online somewhere. (Youtube playlist)
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