Step Into Wellness: Rediscover Joy, Health, and Connection One Walk at a Time
Winding gothic streets, the alluring smell of tapas, and a pronounced lack of Chicago road rage made Barcelona a paradise to walk through. I was recently lucky enough to take a trip there, where we contributed just a little bit to humanity’s centuries-long campaign of polishing those ancient cobblestones.
After a wonderful, though somewhat sweaty day of trekking all over the city, we started a conversation that I think will sound all too familiar to many of you reading. It goes something like this:
Person 1: How many steps did you guys get?
Person 2: I got 18,000.
Person 1: Woah! Wait, let me check. I only got 14,500! I was with you all day.
Person 3: I got 22,000.
We’ve all probably had this same conversation many times, and in reality, it just doesn’t matter. We all walked a good amount, we were tired, we had a nice day, why were we arguing about the numbers like we were going to be graded on them?
We live in an increasingly data-fied world. We have apps to track everything, sleep scores, calories burned, and walking speed. There is no question that many of the advancements we’ve made with data collection make our lives easier and healthier (my friend loves his insulin tracker app and opens it more than Instagram). For medical professionals, data can help reveal patterns, from individual patients to giant populations, and make care more precise.
Sometimes you can’t help but feel that this torrent of data coming from our fitness trackers, and the world of dis and misinformation pouring into our social media feeds, makes thinking about our wellbeing more overwhelming.
With so much noise, the voices we should be hearing are even harder to pick out. In the “vibe” centric world of the 2020s, being healthy feels like work instead of joy. When you quantify things, you feel the need to become efficient with them. I think many of us are looking at our health like a side hustle, something to optimize, and have forgotten that health can be a joy – that 90% of staying healthy is as simple as eating right, listening to your doctor, and getting exercise – things that most often, feel a lot better than fretting over your numbers, or parsing what this friend or that website told you.
Perhaps the simplest thing you can do for your health is walking. I have found joy walking along the 210 freeway in L.A., the neighborhoods of Madison Wisconsin, and at 12,000 feet in the Colorado Rockies (maybe a little more joy in the mountains). I don’t run, and I hardly bike; being sweaty and out of breath doesn’t look good on me like it does for some of my Patagonia-clad friends.
Walking is an incredibly accessible form of exercise; there’s no gym membership required, no equipment is needed, and you can do it pretty much anywhere. As it’s low-intensity, most of us find it relatively comfortable. It’s critical for our health: it helps us age well and stay mobile longer, keeps our muscles, bones, and hearts strong; it helps us think, and stay mentally healthy.
Even 4,000 steps, or about two miles in a day (not to return to the world of statistics), greatly boosts your health. You can walk with friends, or you can walk alone; it can be silent and meditative, or boisterous and connective. Moving slowly makes you notice things, and opens you to the world. I find when I walk, I meet my neighbors, and I feel like a part of my community — enjoying little moments of beauty, from watching a group of children playing outdoors, to the glow of the sun behind a great summer cloud on the horizon.
Walking brings a natural rhythm to our thoughts, making it a powerful source of inspiration—a fact that philosophers from Aristotle to Nietzsche understood and embraced during their daily strolls. Often, after hours of fruitless effort, a breakthrough idea can appear while on a walk. Personally, walking has been instrumental in helping me navigate some of life’s biggest decisions. I still recall the first time I followed the advice to “walk off” a bad mood. Skeptical at first, I couldn’t help but feel slightly annoyed when it actually worked.
Nothing I’ve shared here is groundbreaking. Still, it’s easy to overlook how simple choices—such as taking a walk or calling a friend—can help when everything competes for our attention.
For me, walking is the antidote to the specific challenges of our moment. It cuts through the noise, grounds us in place, helps us listen instead of talk, and reconnects us with ourselves and others. It also gives each of us a sense of control over our health.
You might have your own simple way to take charge of your health. But maybe, wherever you are—at home, at work, on the train, or in bed—take a walk on your next break.
For more information on how walking can provide health benefits, continue reading this article from Kaiser Permanente.
https://healthy.kaiserpermanente.org/health-wellness/healtharticle.benefits-of-walking
