Walk: A Win for Your Body and Brain

Glimpse of Gold - September, 2024

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​Cooler nights. Darker mornings, with frost making an occasional appearance. Colors all around: gold, orange, crimson, purple. Fall is here. And in Steamboat, that means another long winter is soon to follow. 

I love summer. I love open windows, sandals, and the fact that it doesn’t take me an hour to get dressed before leaving the house. I will miss my after-work and weekend hikes perhaps most of all, feeling the lush grasses and shrubs brushing my legs, forearms, even the tops of my shoulders. I will miss looking up at the green aspen, smelling the sap of pine, spruce and fir, warmed from the sun. I’ll miss standing on a rock in the creek, gurgling amber liquid swirling around me.

The good news is that there are still after-work winter walks. Though the lush foliage will be buried under several feet of snow for months, walking is still a win-win. I walk to clear my head, to get my blood pumping the sludge out of legs that’ve been standing all day, and to feel movement in my entire body. My digestion and respiration certainly benefit. But there are even more perks to walking.

In the book Built to Move: The 10 Essential Habits to Help You Move Freely and Live Fully, by Kelly Starrett and Juliet Starrett, the authors explain how walking is a game-changer: 

• Better movement and less pain, because of tissues stretching, moving in ways that are the antithesis of a sedentary “C” position, and joint lubrication.
• Improved feet, because these are your foundation, and when you walk you load and unload the bones, muscles and connective tissues in the feet to build strength and resilience.
• Improved circulation, not just of your blood, but your lymph, which relies on movement and muscle contraction/relaxation to make its way through your body.
• Improved sleep, because walking calms anxiety and lowers depression, both beneficial for sleep. Even 30 minutes of walking a day has been associated with decreasing depression.
• Better brain function, because walking enhances blood flow to the brain (sitting for long periods of time results in less blood flow to the brain). Studies have shown that walking even benefits creativity.
• Decreased stress via improved mood. This is because moderate physical activity (like walking!) has been shown to decrease stress hormones and boost endorphins.

The Starrett’s advocate 10,000 steps per day (one mile is approximately 2,000 steps). This includes incidental steps. They are also clear that even if you aren't hitting that 10k mark, some is better than none.

I’m using time for my barometer, rather than a step counter or Garmin. In addition to my incident steps, my current goal is to get in at least an hour total of running and/or walking each day. My body and brain like this - it feels good. Whatever the season, I hope you’ll join me in walking more. 

A Bit of Autumn's Bounty - September, 2024