Lisa Ray Instagram – Posted @withregram • @janicepariat What is it about walking that makes it so amenable to thinking and writing? A lovely New Yorker article I read recently cites many reasons. For one, the changes to our chemistry—when we walk, our heart pumps faster, circulating more blood and oxygen to all our organs including the brain. Walking regularly also promotes new connections between brain cells, increases memory. The way we move our bodies further changes the nature of our thoughts, and vice versa. When we stroll, the pace of our feet naturally vacillates with our moods; at the same time, we can actively change the pace of our thoughts by deliberately walking more briskly or by slowing down. The article also says because we don’t have to devote much conscious effort to the act of walking, our attention is free to wander. Here a story, and there. A snippet of conversation, a memory, a domestic scene, an enigmatic opening line. Writing and walking are similar feats, it concludes, both physical and mental. Choosing a path through a city or forest, engages us in surveying our environment, constructing a mental map of the world, settling on a way forward, and translating that into footsteps. Likewise, writing allows us to review our internal landscape, plot a course through that mental terrain, and place our trail of thoughts on paper. All very good and interesting but what I missed in the article was this: how walking and writing are both dependant on the rhythms of our body. The beat of our feet, and the beat of our words. How they both involve the rhythm of our hearts and our breath. How these activities don’t take place out there but are located within us—language and the act of walking, and this for me might just be the most important connection of all. We shape them, and they shape us. Inextricable, each to each. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 📷 @steve3p_0 #writingandwalking #walkingisgoodforthesoul #walkingistherapy #walkingislife #benefitsofwalking #walkingadventures #walkingandwriting #writingcommunity #writinginspiration #writinglife #writingtips #writingcommunityofinstagram