In praise of walking (in a pandemic)

I had a moment of euphoria in Peckham Rye Park the other day. The dogs in their Christmas coats were out in force, the winter sun illuminating the trees, and I felt the deep satisfaction of a long walk and the sheer joy of being alive. 

Without the normal commute to work, popping out for a sandwich at lunchtime, visiting friends etc, the everyday options for keeping our bodies active have declined significantly during COVID, not helped by the closure of sports and exercise facilities. It turns out that without our normal activities it is not easy to get to the World Health Organisation’s recommendation of 10,000 steps a day. For me this takes about an hour and a half of walking, much more than I would usually do as a form of conscious exercise. I discovered just how difficult it was to reach this target consistently by attempting a challenge that I rather optimistically set for my colleagues at Hackney CVS, to walk, run or cycle the equivalent of around the UK, a total of 6,500 miles, to improve wellbeing and raise money for Hackney Giving.

As the pandemic struck we had to re-invent the way we worked and have been in a state of high alert and change ever since. To Zoom fatigue can be added COVID burnout. One of the most powerful ways we can counter this burnout is by walking. Feeling personally responsible for the success of the challenge, I’ve increased my steps by an average of more than 30,000 a week and I’m starting to feel the results – my fitness is increasing and the feeling of a crushing weight sitting on my shoulders has lifted. Others at work have talked about the impact of more walking on their mental as well as physical health. For a charity that supports the voluntary and community sector in Hackney, this is hugely important – how can we help others if we are not ourselves healthy? 

Research has shown that walking can have other wellbeing-boosting effects. A study from Stanford University showed that it can boost creativity by 60%. Another study from the University of Vermont concluded that exercise should be prescribed to patients with mental health issues before psychiatric drugs. The lead author, David Tomasi, (psychotherapist and lecturer at the University of Vermont), says ‘The general attitude of medicine is that you treat the primary problem first, and exercise was never considered to be a life or death treatment option. Now that we know it's so effective, it can become as fundamental as pharmacological intervention’. Other research in Nature has shown that spending at least 2 hours a week outside in nature, either in one go, or broken into chunks, is associated with good health and wellbeing. 

I have found that walking gives me space to reflect and think things through. I can usually rely on a good long walk to provide my brain with a few creative solutions, leading to greater productivity as well as better wellbeing. In fact everything seems a bit better after a walk in the open air. 

Books to read

• These are lovely choices in a lockdown.
• Rebecca Solnit, Wanderlust: A History of walking (Granta, 2014)
• Haruki Murakami, What I talk about when I talk about running (Vintage, 2009). Translated Philip Gabriel.
• Mason Currey, Daily Rituals (Picador, 2014) – demonstrates how often creative people use walking to support their work.