How Walking Can Fix Just About Anything.
How walking can help resolve stress, settle down our emotions, help us solve problems and a whole lot more.
Solvitur ambulando!!
I’ve been practicing this since I was in high school, even before I knew what it really meant. By just simply monitoring my behaviors, how my body sought to cope and recalibrate itself through difficult times, I would always find myself walking. Walking always seemed to work, for everything, every time. Solvitur ambulando!!
If you’ve done the work to develop a deeper sense of trust when listening to your body, perhaps you know precisely what I am talking about and how powerful taking regular action and specific direction towards movement in your life can make all the difference.
Sad? Go for a walk.
Tired? Go for a walk.
Angry? Go for a walk.
Worried? Go for a walk.
Anxious? Go for a walk.
Irritated? Go for a walk.
Grieving? Go for a walk.
Aggravated? Go for a walk.
Feeling down? Go for a walk.
Stuck on a problem? Go for a walk.
As a teen and on through my early 20s, I would often pair walking with prayer - aka - “prayer walking”
Sometimes I would even go so far as to read, write, speak, freestyle open verse right out loud while walking along any random narrow road you might find me down in rural central Indiana. My friends sure thought I was different for doing this. And at the time, I didn’t know the depth to what I now believe about all of those experiences.
Nowadays, I think I know the truth to be much deeper than the surface level fact that I was always finding myself out walking somewhere… for some reason… with no real destination. More on that later…
I’ve never drank. I’ve never done drugs.
But I’ve
always walked.
The simple act of walking is so underrated.
Solvitur ambulando is a Latin phrase which means "it is solved by walking", referring to an anecdotal, practical solution to a seemingly complex philosophical problem. It is often attributed to Saint Augustine in a refutation of Zeno's paradoxes of motion.
Over the last five to ten years, I’ve seen this conversation come up from time to time about how expansively shared is this notion about walking across most cultures across the world. Walking is part of who we are as creatures, as humans, as human beings. For the vast majority of our time roaming this earth, we have been nomadic creatures. Movement, specifically walking around from place to place, has always been part of who we are. It is quite literally written into our DNA.
It is only in our modern day that humans are STUCK to their chairs and sedentary as much as what they are. We live in a time of unprecedented levels of inactivity thanks to advances in technology and continence that have led us to this place of severe evolutionary mismatch, such as how many health conditions today are more common or severe because our biology is poorly adapted to novel environmental conditions, in this case lack of regular and routine physical activity.
If you couldn’t move your butt in a time of need just a few generations back, you were seen as less valuable, less trustworthy, less disciplined, and certainly more of a high-risk individual for the sake of the community. Just imagine several hundred or a thousand years ago. If you were in such poor physical health that you couldn’t move like you needed to, you were as good as dead unless Jesus came and walked by telling you to get up on your feet. (John 5:8-9)
Imagine the more ancient evolutionary perspective for a second. Within the shared ties of a tribal people group, if you weren’t physically fit enough to hunt, forage, help out around the village, you were as good as dead because you were simply too much of a burden on the rest of the village. In a time of scarcity, danger, or unexpected emergency, you would have surely been left behind.
And we’ve probably all heard the many claims and read the many media headlines about the health benefits of physical activity and exercise. It is true that physical activity can be beneficial for our health. And different forms of exercise can be beneficial for different people for different reasons. But guess what, some movement - including any movement - is better than none.
Walking is the most fundamental form of human physical activity.
In the largest study of its kind, Althoff et al. collected step counts from a global sample of 717,527 smartphone users from middle- and high-income countries. The global average was 4,961 ± 2,684 (SD) steps/day and the US average was 4,774 steps/day. Data outside the United States of America show much greater average step counts per day.
Canadians 20 years and older (men ∼9,500 steps/day; women ∼8,400 steps/day)
Swiss adults aged 25–75 (men ∼10,400 steps/day; women ∼8,900 steps/day)
Belgian adults aged 25–75 years old (∼9,600 steps/day
Western Australian adults 18 and older (∼9,600 steps/day)
Japanese participants aged 15 and older (∼7,200 steps/day)
Data on Amish populations suggest upwards of ∼18,000 steps/day, similar to that of the highly sought after Hadza tribe of hunter-gatherers in Tanzania with ∼18,000 steps/day for men and ∼10,000 steps/day for women.
Clearly, everyone is walking more than the average American today. We may very well be the most sedentary population on the planet.
Could there really be such great potential for growth and improvement in the lives of humans today by just simply walking more? What do you think?
Some have described this notion of “everything can be solved by walking” with the phrase of Solvitur ambulando as an ancient practice now being reclaimed and embraced to support holistic and integrative therapies of mental health concerns.
Many different models of supporting someone’s journey in health and healing today likely could - and should - include walking, preferably in nature. Even better if we can get some safe sunshine while we are at it.
Moving our bodies literally stimulates greater hope, positivity, joy, sense of optimism, safety, and security in the complex psychological frameworks in our brains. Walking produces a “beat” or "rhythm” so to speak with very cyclical stepping and breathing along with the chance to remind the body “I’m not in danger. I’m walking. If I were in danger, I would be running!” So the act of calmly walking helps remind our nervous system, everything is okay while we PHYSICALLY and EMOTIONALLY move away from the problems that may reside inside our minds.
Last science point to mention - but certainly not least - I want to make sure you know about MYOKINES. These powerful chemical messengers have been titled as “HOPE molecules” as they are released by muscle contraction. These small proteins travel to the brain, cross the blood-brain barrier, and act to boost mood as a natural antidepressant and elevating stimulant. Boosting mood and busting stress, these proteins reduce anxiety and depression symptoms, fostering optimism and overall well-being.
Throughout all of my travels to different countries during college, I found myself walking ALL THE TIME in these countries and not having to actually pursue walking for the sake of walking, though I did on occasion because I enjoy it so much. In just our normal everyday agenda we would often get close to 15,000 steps per day.
Whether I was hiking in Guatemala and staying in people’s homes for a few hours between trips or I was in Turin, Italy walking across town from teaching English to find our group a dinner spot and then later, walking more as we went to get late-night gelato. You can guarantee I was walking tens of thousands of steps in Thailand and Malaysia when we weren’t bouncing around on a bus. The same is true for beautiful cityscapes and nature escapes in Australia and Singapore.
People around the world walk, most primitively, by default to most of their destinations. Oddly enough, those who live in big cities like New York, Los Angeles, Miami, and Chicago also walk a lot as they may not choose to drive a car but would rather take a train or subway. In comparison, out here in the rural midwest, I find most people walk from inside their home into their garage, into their cars and from their destination’s parking lot into and throughout the destination. They may only walk if going to the store, going to work where they work on their feet, or playing a sport like pickleball. Otherwise, most people are staying sedentary.
Many people work from home these days, and many more work from their desks, sitting sedentary for 7-9+ hours a day. Add time in commute and leisure, people can be nearly sedentary all of their waking hours in the day. Personally, I don’t know how this group of people exist healthfully… because I know at least for me… I need to move. Literally, everything seems to go better with routine regular movement throughout the day.
Nowadays, I don’t have daily step goals, nor do I have the time and bandwidth to truly track my steps (accurately) but I can tell dramatically when I am not at my best is often when I haven’t been able to get ample walking in my routine.
My hope is that for all of us that we can find meaningful movement that works for us. Whether that is walking more each day or an every-other-day pilates and yoga routine or buying that self-care treadmill desk you’ve been keeping your eye on for the last few years. Personally, I like to take 10-20 min walks between work obligations or take calls walking every chance I get. I also like to use my in-home rebounder - which is a little mini-trampoline - inside during the cold of winter when I don’t have the chance to get outside and run around in the warmth and sunshine.
We all need to find our own unique ways to keep our body moving, partially because it is what we are designed for and also because when it works for us it HELPS so much in the magical effects to support mental and emotional health and wellbeing.
To close the loop about my crazy ways of walking when I was younger … looking back… I believe all that walking was an act of my body, brain, and emotions - along with whatever else lives inside our complex creation - calling me to get my body moving as a means of healing… shedding struggles, physically walking to keep from feeling stuck mentally and emotionally in many different ways, shapes, and forms.
Maybe you can relate, I’d love to hear your story.
As I sign off today, let’s remember one thing…
as they say
“Gotta keep it movin’!”
ZigZag Nutrition represents the pursuit we share as we strive to live this life as best as we can, learning and growing, flexing and adapting along the way to better align ourselves to the most nutritious life and lifestyle that meets our needs and nourishes our body, mind, and spirit - together.