EVERYBODY'S TALKIN' 'BOUT A NEW WAY OF WALKIN'

‘Walk Right In,” written and recorded by Gus Cannon and his Jug Stompers in 1929 (later a hit for the Rooftop Singers), has a refrain as relevant today as ever.

“Walk right in
Sit right down
Baby, let your mind roll on…

Everybody’s talkin’ ‘bout a new way of walkin’.
Do you want to lose your mind?”

Actually, walking makes your mind better - check out this link to Trinity College Dublin neuroscientist, Shane O’Mara, joining host Krys Boyd on the podcast “Think,” talking about why ditching the car is great for your body, your mood, your brain, and your connection to fellow humans and the natural world.  O’Mara’s new book is “In Praise of Walking: A New Scientific Exploration.”

Walking is particularly linked to your brain’s “hippocampus,” the word coming from the Greek for seahorse or the creature, part horse and part dolphin, often pictured pulling Neptune's chariot,

The hippocampus is a kind of internal GPS, thanks to its housing “place cells” - pyramidal neurons  within the hippocampus that become active when an animal enters a particular place in its environment, which is known as the “place field”. Through this field and cells, the hippocampus is linked with imagination, learning, memory, thinking about the future, and thus, to our orientation in both space and time.

For a long time, it was thought that the brain produces no new brain cells. But that is no longer thought to be true. It turns out that movement results in new brain cells being produced throughout our life - particularly in the hippocampus.

Key to this process are molecules produced by the muscles - myokines - that benefit the heart, the brain, the endocrine and immune systems. Skeletal muscle is now being recognized as a secretory organ, not just a motor or a sensory organ.

Finally, a lovely short video of Thich Nhat Hahn on walking meditation.

 In my room, the world is beyond my understanding;
 But when I walk I see that it consists of
three or four hills and a cloud.
- Wallace Stevens