Two studies out last week demonstrate connections between practicing yoga and simple walking may work to help improve your brain health. Previous research has linked exercise to helping keep our brains healthy. The two latest studies independently found that walking and yoga may help our brain health in different ways.
To study the effects of walking on brain health, researchers followed a group of older adult “couch potatoes” — ages 59 to 80 — who joined a walking group, or stretching and toning group for a year…
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Walking does not improve your brain health when you take any of your three teenagers along with you, it simply contributes to your mental unwellness because you want to spend quality time with them and they are being complete idiots.
I’ve long been a proponent of yoga for athletes. I use it in conjunction with strength and aerobic training and can definitely see the benefits.
I’m 64 years old–sort of an old alley cat, a survivor with many scars from over the years. I stumbled over the benefits of walking many, many, years ago. Walking and meditation can be easily combined: 1. Walk alone, in the dark (rid all distractions. 2. keep your eyes on the path about eight feet in front of you. 3.Walk the same path daily. 4.Focus on the pattern of your breathing as you walk. 5. Count your steps (I count to 100, then repeat over and over. 6. Walk a path a few miles from home (even when you don’t feel like it, once you’re at “your” path, the sense that “What the hell. I’m here. Might as well walk” comes, at least for me). 7. Keep at it. It might take months, years, or a lifetime, but I believe that whatever “IT” is, will come. After a couple of weeks increase the distance incrementally…like add another lap to your circular path. As you walk, you will discover that thoughts will bubble up and subside, sort of like an ebb and flow. Let it be…You have no “goal” or destination, and, incidentally, that old saw “not the destination but the journey” is also bullshit. It’s not the journey, either. I don’t know what it is. And now, at 64, I don’t care, either. I cannot hang words on this stuff. I decided back in the early 70′s that since I couldn’t sleep (thanks, US Army draft!), I might as well do something. Then I decided that I’d make use of the oldest & the newest evolutionary developments: The ability to walk upright, and simultaneous use of the neocortex. Now here I am, still. Not as brisk, no longer able to strap weights to my legs like I did for many years, walking at 4:00 a.m. (the bars/drunks are passed out, and the gansta’ kids are mostly at home. It’s safe, though folks don’t seem to believe it.)I’m the only person I know who actually wears out the soles of my sneakers as opposed to the uppers. Oh! Don’t carry a wallet or wear glasses. Leave them in your car. I find that nursing scrubs (you can find them dirt cheap at thrift stores) work beautifully, and don’t attract attention even in “undesirable” high-crime neighborhoods. I’ve always ended up, somehow, living in such neighborhoods (Grad school @ Wayne State University, Detroit MI…right after the ’68 riots, during the years of the “Devil’s Night” arsons, in both East and West Side gang turf). Once again: Here I am, keepin’ on keepin’ on. My siblings are dead, as are many of my same-generation friends. I would be arrogant to attribute my survival simply to hiking, but it’s certainly a huge part of my life. I need my body to carry my head around, and I have a responsibility to treat it at least as well as I do my (now adult) children and their kids.
-mm-
I love the comment above from the self described old alley cat. My friends tease me and call me the “walker”. I love to hike and walk for hours. I think I’m in good company. Thanks for the post!
Useful article and I love the old alleycat’s comments. Used to walk in the dark with my Alaskan Malamute – not on dangerous streets but an icy path. Figured if I had a bad fall Scully could drag me out! favorite times were moonlit winter nights…. The comments inspire me to try a little night walking again – it does allow being meditative.
I don’t agree with the conclusion the author made. The article states that (1) DMN (which dominates brain activity when a person isn’t doing much of anything, such as watching TV or daydreaming) significantly improved in the brains of the older walkers, but not in the yoga group; (2)walkers did significantly better on cognitive tests; (3) yoga-ers had significantly increased GABA levels (thought to be associated with depression and anxiety disorders)and also noted greater improvement in their mood and anxiety. He concludes that “Perhaps yoga is even better for you than walking, but walking is pretty good too.”
Nothing in the article indicates that yoga is better than walking. Rather, each activity appears to produce a different result. Walking decreases the amount of time spent idling and increases cognition. Yoga decreases anxiety and increases mood. How do you judge which effects are ‘better’? In addition, it remains to be seen if ‘idle time’, is detrimental to the human mind. There are studies indicating that daydreaming (‘idle time’) is essential to our development.