Why Walking Is Beneficial For The Brain

The title of this article may have surprised you. Can the simple habit of walking make our brains more creative and make us happier? Of course. It’s not just us who say this, the majority of doctors and neurologists agree.

For example, one of these experts is neurologist Jose Angel Obeso, director of the Centro Integral en Neurociencias (Centre for Neurosciences) in Madrid, Spain.

His daily work in the hospital and interacting with people who suffer from depression helped him to see how therapeutic it can be to prescribe people ‘an hour of walking a day’ – in a natural environment, of course.

As you may already know, depression and even long periods of high stress or anxiety can cause a deficiency in the fundamental cognitive processes in our brain, such as memory, understanding, creativity and so on. Walking every day will noticeably improve all these processes.

So you have no excuse. We are sure that after reading this article you will put this effective and therapeutic agent into practice. So go for a walk!

The ‘automated brain’ and unhappiness

There is another very interesting aspect that we need to remember. Some habits can ‘automate’ our brains without us realizing it and thereby make us stressed. Do not forget these aspects:

• The brain’s worst enemy is routine. By doing the same things every day, we fall into a kind of depression and inevitable discouragement. Little by little, our brains will slow down.
• Our ability to pay attention is no longer the same as before, because we have no new stimuli to focus on. There may be gaps in our memory, because almost nothing is of interest to us anymore. Our memory is less active due to low motivation.

• Routine lowers our enthusiasm and is discouraging and the effect of this is very noticeable in the brain. There are fewer neural connections, fewer points of contact.
• Day after day, our brains will react more and more automatically to things. There are no more moments of pleasure or creativity and the brain is governed by established guidelines. Our brains are controlled in the same way as a programmed computer. This is a major risk to our emotional health as well as our physical health.

According to Dr. Jose Angel Obeso , especially people in large cities suffer from automated brains;  people who almost only pay attention to their emotional needs and who live in cities where there is a lot of pollution and high stress levels.

Walking, an act of personal freedom

 According to Dr. Jose Angel Obeso you may not notice the benefits of walking from day one, but after at least a week, when walking has become a habit in our lives. We then slowly begin to notice the following therapeutic results:

The brain comes to rest

• While walking, the brain has nothing else to worry about. Walking is easy, anyone can do it.
• In addition, you get an extra dose of oxygen from the pure air of nature, which will make you feel even better.

• At this time, the frontal lobe is stimulated,  which is associated with creativity and mood.
• When this includes the natural release of endorphins, the real magic happens. The brain is more euphoric and optimistic.

Increased creativity by walking

An improved mood is accompanied by increased creativity. There is no pressure.

The hormone cortisol, which the body produces when it experiences stress, disappears and the walls of negativity are brought down. We are then able to look at things from a different angle. We are more relaxed, more enthusiastic and more confident.

By walking we experience a feeling of freedom

As humans, we are used to moving around in small spaces:

• our house
• the restaurants we go to
• our workplace
• the supermarket where we do our shopping

These are all confined spaces and they are always full of other people. They are spaces that we know tend to make us more tense. However, the simple act of going for a walk in a natural, open space is perceived as a great act of freedom and expansion.

Contact with nature by walking

According to Dr. Jose Angel Obeso, above all, we should seek contact with nature. This contact can be seen as the return to our mother’s womb, our beginning. It is not a spiritual act, but rather a biological necessity.

When we walk in the city, we continue to inhale a lot of pollution. It is of course better for our lungs to be filled with pure oxygen. In addition, it is important for our eyes to be exposed to new environments and landscapes, new stimuli that can enrich our brains

We hope with this article to motivate you to take a walk every day, even if it is just for half an hour. Go to the park, into the mountains or to the beach. You will see that within a few weeks both your physical and emotional health will have improved.

Walking is undoubtedly much better than a painkiller or a vitamin pill.