SSix weeks after the birth of my daughter, I found myself on the dirt road that runs alongside the River Cam at Grantchester Meadows. It was seven o’clock in the morning and it was cold. Hoarfrost carpeted every blade of grass and my breath made clouds in front of me. But it was a beautiful sunny day. After weeks of settling into the indoor maternity ward – relentless nighttime feedings, tears and exhaustion – a walk in the sun seemed like the next best thing.
It’s not that I haven’t been out all this time. Most of the time, I only went to the end of my neighborhood, in short walks to give the baby some fresh air. Before parental leave, I was busy with my job as a nature and travel writer, often taking long walks in the name of work – and, to be honest, I really missed it. It had been a while since I had felt that feeling of really walking: warmth in my legs, a growing momentum, the repetition of each step under my feet. And I knew that I needed to feel and do something for myself.
Walking was a way to connect with places, a means of transportation. I didn’t often think of it as exercise. And I rarely considered, though I often felt its impact, what it did for my sanity.
Studies on the benefits of walking date back to the 1950s, with the last decade of research concerned with the rise of ‘10,000 steps a day’ challenges and the use of pedometers and activity trackers. What they tell us is that while all of these tools push us to count high steps, there isn’t exactly a magic number to hit. The figure of 10,000 was dreamed up as part of a 1960s pedometer marketing campaign in Japan, and a recent study indicates that half that amount can be beneficial, with benefits plateauing after around 7,500 steps. . The NHS says just 10 minutes of brisk walking a day makes a difference. For an activity many of us mindlessly engage in daily, this sounds remarkable, but it’s estimated that when we walk, more than half of our body’s muscle mass is used. And the benefits of even a moderate pace – around five kilometers per hour – range from improved cardiovascular health, such as lower blood pressure, to better glucose metabolism, musculoskeletal health and to mental well-being.
However, researchers distinguish between the passive steps we take in our lives doing things like food shopping and errands (called “secondary purpose walking”) and the act of going for a walk, which I really missed. On a walk, when we’ve laced our boots a little more intentionally, the benefits go beyond a little exercise, and where we choose to walk can make a big difference.
There is a growing body of research to support the idea that being in nature not only improves mental health but also physical health. Most of the studies point to a 1984 study by Roger Ulrich, professor of healthcare architecture, which examined whether hospitalized patients with a view of nature recovered faster and better than those without. not. Ulrich’s research has transformed the way we think about healthcare facilities and urban environments: the hospital where I gave birth, for example, boasted online that patients in labor could see or even enter the pleasant sensory garden in the courtyard of the building. We could work with a view.
But as contemporary American philosopher Arnold Berleant argues, it’s when we actually move through a landscape, rather than simply treating it as a landscape, that we most fully connect with a place and ignite all of our senses. Berleant uses the term “aesthetic engagement”, but it doesn’t have to be so lofty: a walk along the river might count, or perhaps time spent practicing shinrin-yoku (forest bathing) , really paying attention to the details of the trees, the leaves, the smells and the sounds.
Over the past 20 years, research into the benefits of this type of outdoor exercise has exploded: looking at the impact of, for example, free gyms in parks or improving student learning outcomes. walking in the woods. In one of the first studies, researchers in 2005 found that walking or jogging improved blood pressure and mental health, looking at pleasant rural and urban scenes while doing it had a better impact on broader health and self-esteem than exercise alone.
Many studies have subsequently replicated this laboratory model when assessing nature’s impact on our health, but in 2018 a study of walkers in Iceland removed its research from the laboratory setting. The benefits of walking outdoors have been compared to simply watching a nature video while walking on a treadmill or being sedentary while viewing nature. She concluded that when coping with times of stress, walking outdoors has the greatest impact on well-being, while in circumstances of deep and continuous stress, simply resting and watching the nature does the trick. So we know that there are different and measurable benefits between just watching a scene and entering it.
Honestly, I don’t like to admit that I consider walking a “nature cure”. “Going for a walk might make me feel better!” sounds like such a simple, transactional way of describing what, to me, has always been a richer experience than a bit of exercise.
But the 2005 study pointed to a crucial condition about nature’s impact on us: the quality of the place where this “green exercise” took place made a difference in the results. They found that walkers who witnessed unpleasant scenes of degradation and pollution – which the authors called “threats to the countryside” – suffered a negative impact on their mental well-being. A 2014 study found that spending time engaging with scenes of natural beauty improved people’s connection to nature. So walking in nature, one might say, is tied to actually caring about it.
Current social science research indicates that time spent in nature contributes to what researchers call “pro-environmental behaviors” or PEBs. Listening to birdsong, watching the sunrise – in fact, anything you could do if you’re walking around – could actually make you more likely to advocate for local wildlife conservation, more likely to recycle and vote for greener policies and politicians. Of course, we can’t ignore that some, when hitting the trails unprepared or irresponsibly, can have a detrimental impact: it’s hard to forget the scenes of litter left in the Lake District during lockdown or the reports of those who needed rescue after walking the hills unprepared.
Despite these outliers, I have found that walking in nature connects us to the notion of community: not just among our neighbors, but among other species that share the local environment. Our planet is in the throes of climate collapse: as Britain’s coastline is threatened by rising sea levels and mountain trails across Europe and elsewhere are seasonally engulfed in flames, walking is a small way to forge a connection with the natural world. You won’t protect what you don’t care about, the saying goes, and I care deeply where I walk.
The march, let us not forget, should never be divorced from its history of civil disobedience and protest. From the 1932 Kinder Scout intrusion for the right to roam to April’s Kinder in Color intrusion led by walkers of color, we are reminded that not everyone has the same level of access to the world natural, and that access remains something we must fight for. Online, groups like Black Girls Hike and Indigenous Women Hike show us that while walking can be festive and full of joy, it is always political. As a hobby, walking is less plagued by calls to beat our personal bests, to surpass ourselves as we stroll on Sundays between stiles and hedgerows. When we walk, we can resist the urge to be constantly productive, even during our downtime. Never on a ride did I think I had to push harder, and that’s all the reasons I like it.
But despite all the data about the benefits of nature walking, and for all the big reasons why I think walking is important, I find myself coming back to a simple idea. Walking frees my mind of busy thoughts, each step forming a rhythm for quiet reflection. It draws my attention to my body and the ground beneath my feet. It is in movement that I feel most myself and that I love myself the most. That day I walked by the Cam, I needed someone to remind me.
I walked halfway to Grantchester, breathing in the cold and letting the pale sun warm my skin. And then I turned around at an arbitrary point on the path. I wasn’t trying to go anywhere in particular. On the contrary, as writer Rebecca Solnit wrote in spirit of adventurethe march was “both a means and an end, a journey and a destination”.
Two trees make a forest by Jessica J Lee (Virago)
