Blog #12 Walking Anne Porter Hudgins



 A topic I love talking about in this class mainly because I know it is such a big part of your life is hiking and walking. I am a big walker, and I am sure of many of my friends just think my walking habit is a good form of exercise and a way to stay active and fit. Well of course, that is a benefit of walking that is not what gets me to do it every day. 

The way you were able to move your body in such a rhythmic way creates a flow of thought and consciousness that is unlike any other. While you are walking, you become more creative, you become more open-minded, new ideas are welcomed to enter your mind, and they do enter your mind. The farther you are from your home base for, the more out of your comfort zone you are; it feels as though these ideas become even closer to you. Walking is not the only way this can happen for people, but what I find fascinating is how walking has been an integral part of the human experience and the human experience, specifically in terms of spirituality, since the beginning of time. Chapter after chapter in the Bible, you hear voyages in pilgrimages which are fancy words for walks. They walked much farther with much higher risk yet found faith along the way. Well, I could go on and on about walking since it is something I am passionate about. I do not want this to be a testimony to my love of walking, but I want to see a few sources here that emphasize and back what I am saying about science. 

https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/52/12/800.abstract


Kelly P, Williamson C, Niven AG, et al Walking on sunshine: scoping review of the evidence for walking and mental health British Journal of Sports Medicine 2018;52:800-806.

The finding of this source said, “Policy and national guidelines should promote the known mental health benefits of increased walking and future research should directly address the gaps we have identified.”


https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0732118X22000459


M. Mau, S.H. Klausen, K.K. Roessler,

Becoming a person: How long-distance walking can lead to personal growth – A cultural and health-related approach,

New Ideas in Psychology,

Volume 68,

2023,

100975,

ISSN 0732-118X,

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.newideapsych.2022.100975.

(https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0732118X22000459)



“By looking across historical pilgrimage walks through to secular long-distance walks has illustrated that modern long-distance walking may have implications as profound as the historic walks. Although long-distance walking is popular, it may have deep implications for the individual, making this phenomenon far more than a product of hype. Even though the popularity of long-distance walking is fluctuating, there appears to have been an undercurrent of appeal associated with the long-distance walk through the ages. Perhaps entering into a state of not knowing, of being far away from home but also from one's destination, is a need that we have as humans.”

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