10 Weeks of Winter

Moving meditation…

Step-by-step through sways and shifts walking stimulates a forward moving continual rebalancing. Legs swing out from the hips, articulating at the knee, and grounding through the ankle to the toes. Arms pump or sway or hang at the sides with moderate motion from the shoulders reaching down and out through the fingertips. The core rises up strengthening the spinal column from tail bone to midsection to neck all the way to the top of the head with subtle rotations supporting the fluid dynamic of walking.

Walking is a supple experience – with attention placed on the details of moving from one step to the next it’s possible to feel the transitions through motion filled of aliveness and ability. Even when the body has stuck, uncomfortable places, other parts of the motion happen with graceful ease. Unlike more static states, such as standing or sitting, walking brings more embodiment to impermanence, the transitory experience of being. Neither to be judged as necessarily bad or good, but rather as changeable, moving, flowing from one experience into the next and the next and the next.

Years ago I spent considerable time with and dedication to a meditation practice. I have a constitution which makes meditation, or “sitting” as it is sometimes referred, not exactly easy but very doable. I learned some important lessons about myself, about life, and about spiritual practice from sitting meditations, but most importantly I learned about the limits of sitting meditation. Others will have different limits. Those with a constitution oriented toward activity and perpetually doing or accomplishing will have strikingly different experiences with sitting meditation than I did. As for me, someone who is by nature passive, receptive, and prone to daydreaming (or at its worst dissociation), I could sit all day with no experience of boredom and no emotional discomfort. The worst I remember is some physical discomfort from numbing of the limbs (not a circulation issue but rather from pinched nerves). Does that mean I’m enlightened? Absolutely not. It only reveals that I don’t encounter much discomfort from sitting meditation, but I absolutely do from other activities. Yoga turned out to be a far more powerful practice for me. Holding uncomfortable, especially active, poses contains important information about how I react emotionally or how I let my thinking or nervous system get involved in distracting me out of something I don’t like. Regardless of one’s disposition or personality, meditation practices all boil down to mindfulness – being able to bring non-judgmental attention to what is occurring. For some a sitting practice may be a more powerful tool, for folks like me a more active practice like yoga might better hone mindfulness skills, but I would like to make a case that almost anyone could benefit from walking to develop mindfulness.

Zero cost therapy…

Walking has the advantage of being a natural state of motion for human beings. We’re literally built for it. It’s easy as pie to turn up or turn down the dial on the intensity of the activity: just change the distance, pace, carry more/less extra weight (e.g., in a backpack), or include or exclude inclines.

Walking uses the visual system in important ways which are incredibly therapeutic. To walk you must look ahead, passively survey the landscape through your peripheral vision, and change your focus from close attention (to the uneven pavement for example) to the distance ahead. It’s good for your eyes to move through changes in focus and look out passively. It relieves the tight focus many have from reading and looking at screens causing eye strain. Vision has a direct connection to the brain and is linked with cognitive function and mental health. Walking gives the eyes a break from the habitual patterns.

Walking also give the body a break from the usual. Instead of maintaining static or contorted states when sitting or standing, walking moves the body in and out of different positions. Similarly to the eyes, different muscles get to turn on and turn off in sequence providing relief for some and strengthening others. Walking is literally considered a recovery activity within physical fitness domains. It’s as good or better than some forms of rest. It burns calories and stimulates the metabolism to keep burning calories, it’s a great way to warm up OR cool down from a workout, and walking loosens up and stretches out the body. It just feels good.

Take a break…

Whether engaging in low intensity or high intensity walking the cardiovascular system gets involved. Heart rate increases, even if just a little, and the breath elongates. Again, for me, this is much more effective than a sitting meditation that focuses on breath. I’m less likely to get involved in the depth of my breath at a conscious level and more likely to passively experience deeper respiration when walking. I have a desk job, I sit too much. Walking is the antidote for this behavior and it’s negative effects which have a lot to do with breathing and circulation. Walking gets your blood flowing and makes you breath more fully and roundly. I remember a time when smoke breaks were a more prevalent part of the 9 to 5 workday, and I knew many people who would go out for their 10 minutes or so to smoke a cigarette. I recall hearing that even with the negative impacts of cigarette smoking, many smokers experienced a calm reset from deep inhalation and exhalation (again even though they were breathing cigarette smoke). I don’t know if those claims were true, but just taking a moment to pause and inhale deeply like you’re smoking and then exhale all the way like you’re blowing smoke out feels relaxing. Now, instead of taking a 10 minutes to breathe, what if you just took a 10 minute walk? You’ll breath in and out more deeply, you’ll get therapeutic movement, you’ll help reduce eyestrain and relax your vision, and you’ll improve mental focus and clarity through a relatively passive mindfulness practice – all for free! Try to find that in pill form!!!

Winter walking…

Finally, the winter part of this post. A daily walk was one of my winter protocols for my 10 Weeks of Winter project, where my hypothesis was that if I spent at least 10 minutes per day walking outside I would gain advantages from all I described above plus getting actual daylight (i.e., sunlight) into my eyes and onto my skin. Daylight (technically sunlight, but please don’t look straight at the sun) has been shown to be an important factor in generating vitamin D and supporting healthy circadian rhythms. This translates to: improved mood and better sleep quality. I’ve been pretty good about going for a daily walk this winter, and I have noticed a difference. I especially notice a difference in the evening. Days when I don’t walk, I’m inclined to blow past my bed time. I don’t get as sleepy when I need to feel tired and ready for bed. On evenings when I have gone for a walk I notice that I have better more steady alertness until I’m tired, and because of that I notice the tiredness more in contrast to feeling alert and am more responsive to it resulting in better bed times.

It’s not just sleep quality and energy in the evening though. My daily walks have helped me de-stress and get a chance to be outdoors to appreciate my favorite season. The only catch is that winter walks have to be taken middy if the aim is to be out during the light times. That means I have to fit them into my work schedule. I tried morning walks a couple times, but it was too dark to really feel the benefits. I also tried a couple later afternoon walks through the embers of the day, but they too did not provide enough light. The best hours seem to be between 10 AM and 2 PM. So I have had to build them into my schedule. 10 minutes is possible to fit in, but longer walks are admittedly more difficult to accommodate except on weekends.

Walking dosage…

Everybody needs something a little customized to their goals and physicality and schedule, etc. The following are my experiences with walking and what constitutes as a “dosage” for which purposes.

• 10 minute walk any pace: quick reset, gets daylight, calms and deepens breathing
• 20 minute walk any pace: start to feel good in body and mind, feel more relaxed, helps circulation, mood boost
• 30 minute walk slow to moderate pace: meditative, therapeutic, better sleep
• 30 minute walk fast pace: stimulating and energizing, detoxifying, mental reset
• 30+ minute walk any pace: solid workout, supports tiredness at the end of the day in a good way, facilitates mental focus and creativity