How Long Does A Walk Need To Be?

Is a 10-minute walk around the block worth your time? Do you need 30 or 40 minutes to see benefits? And what happens when a walk becomes an adventure—or even a journey?

In this episode we explore the many purposes of walking, from the quick "exercise snack" that helps reset your day to longer walks that encourage creativity, exploration, reflection, and personal growth.

Drawing on scientific research and real-world examples, we'll look at how different types of walks can benefit our physical and mental health, why walking can boost creative thinking, and how some walks become the stories we remember for years.

Whether you have 10 minutes or an entire afternoon, this episode is a reminder that every walk counts—and that the best walk is often the one you actually take.

Link to sources used in this episode

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Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:05

Welcome to Why Walking Matters, The Science Explained. I'm Tatiana your host. To my lawyer listeners, welcome back. To new listeners, welcome. If you missed last week's episode, I spoke with coach and author Leah Appleton about her book Walking and Wayfinding, Create Your Own Mindful Practice One Step at a Time. It was about the idea that walking can help us navigate not only the world around us, but also the transitions and the challenges we face in life. Something that struck me during our conversation was that not all walks serve the same purpose. In fact, it struck me as I read the book. Sometimes we walk for exercise, but sometimes we walk to think or to explore, and other times we walk for something because we're searching for something deeper. Today I want to take you on a journey through different kinds of walks. From a simple 10-minute walk around the block to a multi-day pilgrimage. What's the difference? At what point does a walk become a journey? Let's find out. So let's start with the shortest walk we'll talk about today. It may not take you very far geographically, but it can still make a meaningful difference in your day. The 10-minute reset walk. Now I do this all the time. The purpose of a 10-minute walk is to break up sitting. If you're an office worker, you're sitting for many hours in front of the computer. It can improve your mood. Maybe you're home and you're feeling a little bit down, you have cabin fever. It gets you moving. That's the most important part of a walk, obviously. And it can create momentum. And the science here is encouraging. For years, physical activity guidelines suggested exercise needed to occur in bouts of at least 10 minutes. Today, however, the guidelines recognize that physical activity of any duration contributes to health benefits. Even brief periods of movement count. From the CDC.gov's Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans 2nd Edition, research continues to support the conclusion that physical activity accumulated in bouts of at least ten minutes can improve a variety of health-related outcomes. In addition, new research indicates that bouts of any length of moderate to vigorous physical activity contribute to health benefits associated with the accumulated volume of physical activity. This new evidence justified the current guidance that moderate to vigorous physical activity of any duration counts toward meeting the key guidelines. So listeners, a 10-minute walk isn't a failure because it's short. It's a success because it happened. And again, this can be walks around the block, walks during your lunch break, walking the dog even, or walking between meetings. This is exactly the kind of exercise snack our previous guest Carol De Sella, registered dietitian, mentioned. So listeners, a 10-minute walk can help us reset and recharge. But what happens when we stay out a little longer? Long enough for our minds to settle and our thoughts to wander. The 30 minute or 40 minute thinking walk. The purpose of a walk like this is for reflection or creativity, problem solving. This is often where a walk can become more than exercise. Researchers found that walking boosted creative thinking both during and after the walk. In one experiment, walking increased creative performance for eighty one percent of participants. Here's the abstract from the National Library of Medicine, the National Center for Biotechnology Information. Give your ideas some legs a positive effect of walking on creative thinking. The authors are Marile Opezo and Daniel Schwartz. Four experiments demonstrate that walking boosts creative ideation in real time and shortly after. In experiment one, while seated and then when walking on a treadmill, adults completed Guilford's alternate uses test of creative divergent thinking and the compound remote associates test of convergent thinking. Walking increased eighty one percent of participants' creativity on the GAU but only increased twenty three percent of participants' scores for the CRA. In experiment two, participants completed the GAU when seated and then walking, when walking and then seated or when seated twice. Again, walking led to higher GAU scores. Moreover, when seated after walking, participants exhibited a residual creative boost. Experiment three generalized the prior effects to outdoor walking. Experiment four tested the effect of walking on creative analogy generation. Participants sat inside, walked on a treadmill inside, walked outside, or were rolled outside in a wheelchair. Walking outside produced the most novel and highest quality analogies. The effects of outdoor stimulation and walking were separable. Walking opens up the free flow of ideas and it is a simple and robust solution to the goals of increasing creativity and increasing physical activity. Okay, let's break that down. So what were the researchers trying to find out? The researchers wanted to know whether walking actually improves thinking or whether that's just a feeling. More specifically, they wanted to know whether walking helps with creative thinking. So how did they test it? They conducted four separate experiments involving college students and adults. Participants completed creativity tests while sitting, walking on a treadmill, walking outdoors, or being wheeled outdoors to separate the effect of movement from simply being outside. So what kind of creativity were they measuring? The researchers focused on divergent thinking. That's the ability to generate lots of ideas or see multiple possibilities. For example, if I hand you a paper clip and ask what are all the possible uses for this besides holding paper, that's divergent thinking. The more original and varied your ideas are, the higher your score. So the main finding was that walking boosted creative thinking. Across the experiments, people consistently produced more creative ideas while walking than while sitting. And the second finding was that the effect continued after the walk. Researchers found that creativity remained elevated even after participants sat back down. In other words, walking didn't just help during the walk. The creative boost lingered afterward. So it means that if you need help with writing or planning or brainstorming, a walk before sitting down to these activities may be helpful. And the researchers found that outdoor walking was especially powerful. In one experiment, as you heard, outdoor walkers generated the most novel and highest quality analogies. However, the researchers also found that walking itself mattered. Even treadmill walking in a plain room improved creativity. So the benefit wasn't solely due to being outside. However, walking did not improve every kind of thinking. The researchers also tested convergent thinking, which is the type of thinking used when there's one correct answer to a problem. Walking helped much less with those tasks. So the study doesn't prove that walking makes you smarter overall. It suggests that walking helps when you need new ideas, when you need to brainstorm, it helps creativity, fresh perspectives, rather than memorization or when you need precise calculations. So if you're stuck in a problem, trying to make a decision, planning a project, or looking for inspiration, try taking a walk. The science suggests walking may help open up the flow of ideas and make creative connections that are harder to find while sitting. Okay, so that was the 30 to 40 minute walk. A 10-minute walk can change your day, a 40-minute walk can change your thinking. So what about a 90-minute walk? A 90-minute walk is probably more of an exploration walk. Heading somewhere unfamiliar, following a trail, discovering history if you're into that sort of thing, or even just exploring a new neighborhood. These walks often become memorable because they combine movement with novelty, exploring someplace new. Several studies have found that exploring a new environment can improve memory and learning compared with exploring a familiar environment. The proposed explanation is that novelty or newness increases attention and engages memory-related systems in the brain. From the National Library of Medicine, active exploration of novel environments is known to increase plasticity in animals, promoting long-term potentiation in the hippocampus and enhancing memory formation. These effects can occur during as well as after exploration. In humans, novelty's effects on memory have been investigated with other methods, but never in an active exploration paradigm. We therefore investigated whether active spatial exploration of a novel compared to a previously familiarized virtual environment promotes performance on an unrelated word learning task. Exploration of the novel environment enhanced recall, generally thought to be hippocampus dependent, but not recognition, believed to rely less on the hippocampus. Recall was better for participants that gave higher presence ratings for their experience in the virtual environment. These ratings were higher for the novel compared to the familiar virtual environment, suggesting that novelty increased attention for the virtual rather than real environment. However, this did not explain the effect of novelty on recall. So that study found that active exploration of a new environment improved later recollection of unrelated information compared with exploring a familiar environment. And as always, listeners, links to all the research and articles we use in our episodes are always found in the podcast show notes. So, listeners, when we walk somewhere new, which is something we'd probably do during a 90-minute walk, our brains pay attention differently. Novel environments demand observation, navigation, and exploration. Now we know that exploring new environments can enhance memory and learning compared with familiar surroundings. I'm glad the research aligns with my personal feeling whenever I go on a new hike. The research consistently finds that nature walks improve mood and positive effect, and some studies suggest reduced mental fatigue. So the combination of exploring someplace new, maybe learning about the history of the place, simply being outside in nature, and the idea of discovering something. These walks often become memorable because they combine movement with novelty. How many amazing places are within an hour of your home that you've never explored? Take your curiosity on a 90-minute adventure. Actually, when we move from exploration to adventure, something shifts. We're no longer fitting a walk into our day, we're making the walk the reason for the day. Now this reminds me of Leah Appleton's Wayfinding Day. This can be a half day adventure, something to challenge yourself or to immerse yourself in the walk. It can feel like an escape. It can be a hike in a state park or along a trail. For this, you're building your day around the walk. And according to University of Vermont Health, hiking or walking outdoors provides an opportunity to disconnect from the constant mental stimulation of our electronic devices. And spending time outside helps reduce symptoms of depression and improves emotional well-being. So to get a solid three to four hour adventure walk experience without traveling far, you can look into expansive local areas that offer great scenery and flat accessible pathways. And if you plan to try a half-day adventure walk, listeners, remember to bring enough water to wear comfortable footwear, and depending on the weather, dress in layers, don't pack you know anything that's too heavy, pack lightweight, maybe a windbreaker or rain jacket, um, sun or bug protection. And for a three to four hour trek, you don't need a heavy lunch, but you will need steady energy. So bring portable, satisfying snacks, and it's suggested to plan your walk for the mid-morning so you can finish right around lunchtime. If you try this for the first time, please share your walking story with me at whywalkingmatters.com. And if a half day adventure can feel transformative, imagine what happens when walking becomes the journey itself. A few episodes ago, I read a story about someone's walk on the Camino de Santiago. And last week, author Leah Appleton shared with us that she'd be walking the Camino very soon. So hopefully we'll hear all about it. But why do people go on these pilgrimages? What are people really looking for when they spend days or weeks walking? I'm sure there are a lot of answers to that question. Perhaps it's tradition, could be for clarity, reflection, or it could even be as a challenge. But ultimately, a pilgrimage is still just walking, but walking with intention. Whether it's a walk around the block or a journey measured in days rather than minutes, every walk has something to offer. The question isn't really how far you walk, it's what the walk gives back to you. One of the things I love about walking is that the benefits begin almost immediately, but they continue to grow as we continue moving. A short walk can break up long periods of sitting, boost energy, or improve mood. And as walks become longer and more regular, the benefits expand. Research has consistently linked regular walking to a host of physical benefits. Improved cardiovascular health, lower blood pressure, better blood sugar control, improved sleep, increased longevity. The CDC recommends adults accumulate at least 150 minutes of moderate intensity physical activity each week, and walking is one of the easiest ways to get there. But today's episode isn't really about hitting a number. It's about recognizing that different walks serve different purposes. Thank you, Leah. A 10-minute walk may help you reset your day. A 40-minute walk may help you solve a problem. A half-day walk may help you discover something new. A pilgrimage may help you discover something about yourself. The shortest walks help us maintain our lives. The longest walks sometimes help us change them. And all of them count. What is the walk you'll never forget? The one that still comes to mind whenever someone asks you to tell a walking story. As we've learned today, as we've learned today, there isn't one perfect walk. Sometimes all you need is 10 minutes around the block, but sometimes you need enough time for your thoughts to catch up with you. And sometimes, if you're lucky, a walk becomes a journey. This week I'd encourage you to think about the walks that have shaped your life, the walks you remember, the walks that taught you something, the ones that became stories. Because next week we're going to spend some time talking about exactly that. Until then, keep putting one foot in front of the other, stay curious, and keep walking. Need catering for your next event? Let Vic Soup Spot Catering take care of the food. 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