Take a Walk on the Wild Side

Why simply walking might be the best thing you can do

Walking has been shown to be one of the most effective ways to get exercise and when we look at the neurological impacts, they are pretty impressive. Combine this with exposure to nature and we have an even more potent tool for boosting health.

When I speak at public events there are always guaranteed to be two types of questions that I get.

One will be on certain mental disorders, normally from a member of the audience who has a family member with a specific disorder.

Two will be something to do with healthy brains. This second one may be guided by current trends which may vary from eating nuts, omega-3 fats, meditation, or any number of other trends or recent news reports. Many of these trends or news stories are based on research and therefore have some element of truth in them. But as many of you know I always like to take a step back and look at the big picture - I think of what the actual biggest impact is on an individual and an individual’s brain.

One of the most striking things is that often simple things have large impacts. Apologies this is sometimes a bit “boring”, no hype here. And the simplest of them all is probably walking. This is probably nothing new to many of you readers, but let's review the research anyhow just so you understand how powerful and how impactful this is, and the dramatic benefits for your brain. I also claim that by taking a few adjustments and combining a couple of other elements, such as nature, we can boost the positive benefits even more and this has well documented and powerful impacts on your brain.

Shane O’Mara is an Irish neuroscientist who has written book on the power of walking “In Praise of Walking”. Many of the benefits are the benefits we can see from physical exercise in general. The most dramatic of which is an increase in something known as Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF). It is a mouthful to say but when neuroscientists talk about BDNF it means brain growth.