[HN Gopher] The Ambling Mind
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       The Ambling Mind
        
       Author : niceguitars
       Score  : 28 points
       Date   : 2024-05-18 20:19 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (theconvivialsociety.substack.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (theconvivialsociety.substack.com)
        
       | garyrob wrote:
       | Walking is truly great, but it's not uniquely magical.
       | 
       | Most of my best ideas have come on long drives. I believe that
       | driving has a lot of the aspects of walking that lead to the
       | ability to have ideas. The activities themselves (the need to
       | avoid running into other cars while driving or tripping over
       | something while walking) seem to involve just enough distraction
       | to keep you from falling into a rut of repetitive thought, while
       | still enabling a state of free thinking that you can take quite
       | far into a subject.
       | 
       | As for the time I could spend walking daily: I meditate daily for
       | half an hour in a Buddhist tradition. And the rest of the time I
       | could spend on daily walks I spend instead on medium-intensity
       | aerobic exercise, which does more purely medical good than
       | walking does and also is more associated with delaying age-
       | related cognitive decline. (I need to add more HIIT which would
       | help even more.)
       | 
       | On the other hand, my wife and I are also planning a 2-hour hike
       | for later today. Because walking is great. It's the weekend, and
       | we can give ourselves that.
        
       | danjl wrote:
       | Even better with a dog
        
         | qup wrote:
         | Disagree. My walks with my dog are about her, not about my
         | wandering mind
        
           | amelius wrote:
           | But the dog gets great ideas.
        
       | IncreasePosts wrote:
       | I'm not taking health advice from a guy that died at 42!
        
       | moribvndvs wrote:
       | I walk at least 4 miles a day. Looking back at my daily mood,
       | diet, and health data, it seems missing a day can have negative
       | knock on effects that can last a day or two, and longer if I miss
       | several days. I sleep deeper, eat better, feel less stress and
       | generally happier. I also get a lot of my work done in my head
       | (software, of course), more so if I leave the earphones at home.
       | Even the treadmill helps notability, although I think sunlight
       | and the peace of outdoors is more effective. I don't have the
       | same data but my estimation is that strength training didn't
       | quite have the same effect other than physical health (for me).
       | Now, if only I could get myself to do both... I don't enjoy
       | strength training and it's been hard to keep doing it
       | consistently.
        
         | jseliger wrote:
         | _Since then, I've serendipitously encountered a handful of
         | similar meditations on the value of walking_
         | 
         | My wife wrote one: "The dangers of walking include falling in
         | love" https://bessstillman.substack.com/p/the-dangers-of-
         | walking-i...
        
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       (page generated 2024-05-19 23:01 UTC)