‘In Praise of Walking’: A Brisk Stroll Does Wonders for Us
A review of ‘In Praise of Walking’, by Shane O’Mara; Vintage Publishing, 2019.
The amusing description of golf as ‘a good walk spoilt’ is often attributed to Mark Twain; and it does sound like the sort of thing be might have said. But it was mentioned in a London newspaper in 1897 in quotation marks and then two years later in a Sydney sporting journal, which suggests it was in circulation long before. And really, reader, are we surprised? Of the two — walking and golf — I know which one I would rather do. There really is nothing like a good stroll.
The neuroscientist Shane O’Mara agrees. In his lovely little book, In Praise of Walking, he advances an argument that walking is not just about getting from one place to another, and is not just good for our physical and mental wellbeing, but part of what makes us human. Walking, he says, is a thread that runs through both the biology and history of the human being. His book is not just a survey, but a tribute to this very humble, very human thing: putting one foot in front of other.
Walking is not just about getting from place to another, and is not just good for our physical and mental wellbeing, but part of what makes us human.
Bipedalism, that is, the fact of using two legs to walk (rather than, say, four) marks us out from our animal cousins. The simplicity of the experience of walking belies the complexity of the mechanics involved. It involves maintaining an upright posture — made possible with a minimum of muscular effort thanks to our curved spine — which also frees the hands to perform other tasks; arched feet which can absorb shocks; a wide pelvis to centre the body’s mass over the legs; a complicated ‘gait cycle’, involving the heel strike, stance, push-off and swing phases; the coordination of the quadriceps, calves, glutes and core and the maintenance of balance through the vestibular system in the ear. Thanks to this, walking is staggeringly energy efficient.
There is also a close link between walking and the workings of the brain. Even a short walk boosts our memory, creativity and quality of thinking. It also dramatically decreases our stress and improves our mood. It is good for the heart, the muscles and the metabolism. But a little more on thinking. You may know that the original meaning of the adjective peripatetic (meaning ‘travelling from place to place, particularly for work’) was ‘pertaining to the disciples or philosophy of Aristotle’, from the Greek perpatētikos (‘given to walking about, especially while teaching’). Aristotle’s school was called the Peripatos because of the peripatoi (‘walkways’) of the Lyceum where the members met. Numberless artists, thinkers and doers, from William Wordsworth to Nietzsche, walked to stimulate their minds and come up with new ideas. There was, in fact, a neat little study in which students were asked before and after a short walk to name as many uses for an object as they could. (This is a common test of creativity.) Typically, the number more than doubled after the short walk; the quality of the ideas increased, too.
Numberless artists, thinkers and doers, from William Wordsworth to Nietzsche, walked to stimulate their minds.
O’Mara turns to walking as a social act that manifests not only in everyday bonding between friends or family members taking a stroll, but in pilgrimage and protest. He considers walking as a means for us to connect with Nature by helping us to establish a sense of place. He makes a case for creating walkable cities, where the needs of pedestrians are put above the needs for drivers, and how these cities — Copenhagen, Bologna, Amsterdam; you can probably name a few yourself — tend to be more vibrant and healthy. O’Mara laments the way so many of us will drive even short distances (I have a friend who used to drive the ten-minute walk to the gym, which still strikes me as ironic), and argues quite persuasively that this has a far more deleterious effect on public life and our wellbeing (as well as the natural world) than we might think.
His theme, as I have alluded to before, is that walking is a fundamentally human act, and that it has been central to our biological and social evolution as a species. If we walk long enough, we enter a state of optimal experience — what the psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (that’s ‘Mee-high, cheeks-sent-me-high’) called ‘flow’. We can pack ourselves into yoga studios or follow convoluted advice about how to ‘access’ this superhuman state; but there is a much easier, simpler, humbler, altogether more human way to do it, and that is: to walk.
Walking is a fundamentally human act, and that it has been central to our biological and social evolution as a species.
And it is perhaps the simplicity of walking, its banality, if you like, that presents the greatest challenge for O’Mara. How the hell do I make this interesting? In my view, if he ever asked himself this question, he answered it brilliantly. His sincere enthusiasm for his subject is almost palpable and his skilful blending of anecdote with science brings colour and detail to the picture he paints. Casting light on how walking touches on just about every part of life, while also showing how basic walking is to being human, makes his book entirely universal — ‘relevant’ (to invoke an overrated concept). For better or worse, many of us are reluctant to accept the advice of our parents or grandparents, or to view what has worked empirically through time as sound if it is not supported by hard science. O’Mara is here to say that walking did a world of good for Aristotle and Einstein and Thoreau and Coleridge, it brought human beings out of the Great Rift Valley to places hospitable to agriculture and civilisation, it has been the wellspring of great ideas and an enabling force in social movements, and allowed people of all faiths to connect with the divine. But also: here’s the science.
So, dear reader, put away the phone, close the laptop or turn off the computer. Lace up those shoes and go for a stroll. Relax into one of our humblest traditions, which is to put one foot in front of the other and move. It is, after all, good for mind, body and soul.
