5 Ways Walking Can Improve Your Mental Health
- Brainz Magazine
- 3 days ago
- 5 min read
Jayden Aubryn is an innovative healer who has quickly become an expert in their field. As the founder of TISE Consulting and Therapy and co-founder of Chaotic Healing, they specialize in making healing accessible and fun.
We all know walking is good for us. But how is it good for us? What tangible ways can we use walking to improve our daily experiences? This article will explore 5 ways that your walk to the car, in a park, or around the office can improve your mental health.
Why does walking help your mental health?
We’ve all read articles telling us to walk for cardiovascular health, weight loss, cognitive function, and other physical health benefits. However, walking is equally beneficial to your mental health. Some key reasons are:
Walking is a bilateral movement that activates both sides of your brain.
The physical aspect of walking allows emotional energy to move through your body.
Blood and oxygen flow increase when walking, which improves mood and reduces stress.
However, the benefits of walking don’t end there. With a few minor adjustments to how you walk, you can improve your mental health symptoms more effectively.
Changing your emotions
Have you been sad all day and want to feel joy? Is it hard for you to feel angry? Do you need a good cry and want help releasing those tears?
Research shows walking can help with your emotional needs if you adjust your posture while walking.
Our feelings and bodies are always in dialogue. When we feel stressed, our shoulders tense. When we feel confident, we lift our chins. When we feel sad, we droop downwards. However, this communication is not a one-way street.
When we relax our shoulders, we feel calm. When we intentionally lift our chins, we feel confident. If we slump our shoulders, we feel tired and sad. If someone tells you to “walk like you’re angry”, you will likely stiffen your muscles and put more weight in each step. And by walking in that manner, you’ll likely start feeling irritated or angry.
The next time you want to shift your emotional state, try walking with an emotional prompt for 1-2 minutes.
Mindfulness
Mindfulness is the practice of paying attention to one thing at a time. Often, when we think of mindfulness, we think of sitting silently and breathing. While that is one form of mindfulness, as you are paying attention to your breath, there are many other ways to practice it.
You can practice mindfulness while walking by noticing how your feet feel on the ground. Pay attention to the sensation of striking your heel on the ground, rolling through your feet, pushing off with your toes, and transferring weight to your other foot.
This walking technique is a great way to begin your mindfulness practice.
Managing anxiety
When we move quickly, our bodies become activated and alert. Our heart rate increases, we breathe faster, blood and oxygen flow more forcefully, our internal temperature increases – we quite literally activate energy in our body.
All these same biological mechanisms occur when we’re feeling anxious. With anxiety, however, there’s also an underlying thought or worry that something bad might happen. If your body becomes energetically activated but cannot locate a threat, it will look for one. If your body can’t find a threat, it will become more anxious. This is because it believes there’s an unknown danger lurking around the corner that it must protect you from. This process creates an unpleasant cycle of anxiety, creating more anxiety.
However, if your body becomes energetically activated from walking, it stops looking for a threat. It realizes that it’s activated due to exercise, not because of danger, and will stop looking for a threat. This can interrupt the anxiety cycle and help you return to a non-anxious state.
The next time you feel your anxiety spiraling out of control, go on a brisk walk. Two minutes of walking can be enough to help calm your body down. For a bonus, once you finish your walk, take a few deep breaths to help slow your heart rate down.
Improving relationships
We all must learn to increase intimacy in our relationships at some point. Whether it’s a new friend you’re excited about, a romantic partner you want to take the next step with, or a colleague you’ll be working with more closely, knowing how to increase intimacy is a valuable skill.
While intimacy can often be a scary conversation, walking provides a simple and safe way to engage with it.
Walking in step with a person (i.e., both people stepping with their right foot at the same time, and then their left foot at the same time) synchronizes the nervous system. When our nervous systems synchronize, we can feel more connected with the other individual.
This walking activity can be done at staff retreats or during a romantic date. Try walking in step the next time you want to feel more connected with someone.
Processing difficult events
If an event activates the emotional part of our brain, then the logical sides of our brain may shut down. This can make it difficult to think about stressful or overwhelming events long enough to gain clarity around them.
However, walking stimulates both sides of the brain, the emotional and logical. This allows you to think more clearly about distressing events. Walking will also allow you to move emotional energy through your body, which can reduce future mental health symptoms.
If you’re struggling to think or talk about an event without getting overwhelmed with emotions or dissociating, try thinking about it while on a walk.
Next steps
Most of us walk every day, even if it’s only walking to the bathroom. This means that every day, we have the opportunity to adjust our emotions, manage anxiety, practice mindfulness, process difficult events, and improve our relationships.
If you would like to learn more ways to use everyday movements like washing dishes, watching TV, and brushing your hair to improve your mental health, subscribe to Chaotic Healing w/ TISE on Patreon for as little as $5 per month. You can also follow @tiseconsultingandtherapy on Instagram for free content.
Read more from Jayden Aubry
Jayden Aubryn, Psychotherapist and Consultant
Jayden Aubryn is an accomplished psychotherapist, personal trainer, and consultant with two professional licenses and eight active certifications. As a lifelong dancer, artist, and healer, they believe in utilizing the healing powers of movement, food, music, art, and BDSM. Traditional therapy and medicine are not accessible or effective for everyone. Jayden's mission is to empower people with the knowledge they need to make their healing journey successful and fun.
