Why intelligent minds take their brains for long walks, massive productivity methods and more
3 New ideas on better living
Hello everyone,
Welcome to the Weekend Reads.
Postanly Weekly is now a reader-supported self-improvement newsletter. To maximise impact, all issues in the future will be FREE. To support my work, you can upgrade to a paid subscription for $6 per month or $40 for an entire year. If you are already a paid subscriber, thank you. If you’ve ever paid for any of my digital products, thank you. I appreciate you all (free or paid) for your attention and time. Bonus content for paid supporters: an invite to Thinking Toolbox (mental models for life) and Mental Wealth Toolbox (practical concepts for smarter decisions). All courses and books at Perennial Learner.
In partnership with Morning Brew
Morning Brew covers the latest news across business, finance, and tech in the most digestible way to save you time. The teams condenses the day's most important stories into a short, quick, and entertaining read. It’s read by over 4 million professionals. I read it every day. Try it, it’s free.
Why intelligent minds take their brains for long walks
Great minds literally think on their feet.
Many of history’s famous philosophers, artists, scientists, writers, and creators valued value walking as much as they valued productive work.
Aristotle, Charles Dickens, Henry David Thoreau, Virginia Woolf, Albert Einstein, Friedrich Nietzsche and many others made time for long walks.
They used long walks for contemplation, reflection and problem-solving.
They found walking helped them think better, ponder over ideas and get more done once they got back to writing, creating, designing or composing.
“The moment my legs begin to move, my thoughts begin to flow,” Henry David Thoreau, a philosopher, poet, and environmental scientist, once said.
Aristotle used to conduct some of his lectures while walking on the school grounds. William Wordsworth once said walking was “indivisible” from the creative act of writing poetry.
Charles Dickens used to walk for 20 miles after writing in the morning.
“If I could not walk far and fast, I think I should just explode and perish,” Dickens once said.
German philosopher Immanuel Kant walked at the same time in the afternoon and took the same route almost every day.
Friedrich Nietzsche used to walk for an hour in the morning and three hours in the afternoon. “All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking.”
To maintain focus, concentration and focus, great thinkers often take long, long walks. It helps them clear their minds, think clearly and be ready for another productive work.
Have you ever taken a long walk, and suddenly the world stops spinning, your worries disappear, and the solution to all your problems appears in front of you?
You see everything so clearly; you can’t help but feel a sense of calm wash over you. It’s almost as if you’re seeing your life from a different angle, and it makes you think twice about everything you’d done up till that point.
What does walking have to do with brilliant minds?
“I would walk along the quais when I had finished work or when I was trying to think something out. It was easier to think if I was walking and doing something or seeing people doing something that they understood.”
― Ernest Hemingway
Longer walks, it turns out, are scientifically proven to help you stay on track and process important information more efficiently.
Researchers at the University of Glasgow in Scotland have found that long walks can have a positive impact on our mental health, helping us see things from a different angle and increasing our creativity by around 60%.
If you’re anything like me, your mind tends to wander when you’re out for a walk. Maybe you’re daydreaming, or maybe you’re just trying to get some fresh air and clear your head.
Either way, these walks tend to involve more thinking than usual.
Long walks can be a great opportunity to delve deeper into subjects that we may normally gloss over, or they can be an opportunity to fail miserably at trying to think of something else.
Long walks can sometimes be the catalyst for discovering something new.This is because they allow us to mull over a certain idea, and sometimes that’s enough to trigger a solution.
The general consensus is that a great mind takes long walks, but there aren’t very many details about why this is. Long walks are very beneficial to our minds; you should take long walks every now and then.
People with high levels of working memory tend to take long walks to process information and stay on task.
We’re not talking about getting away from it or taking a break from working. No, we’re talking about taking a long walk so you can clear your head and really think through what you need to accomplish.
Taking a walk in the fresh air can do wonders for your mind, body, and soul. It can also reduce your stress and anxiety, clear your head, and inspire you.
If you want to do more productive work and think a lot better, you need to walk regularly.
Walking is an underappreciated habit. It can be as simple as taking a walk on the beach or just taking a walk around your neighbourhood.
When you walk, your brain synapses fire in different ways.
You have more ideas when you combine reading with walking because it’s more physical, which means it’s not just your imagination that’s firing up new connections and thoughts but also your body.
If you want to think critically, it’s important to keep your brain active in different ways. One of the best ways to do this is by going for a walk each day. It will help you gain new perspectives on life and keep you healthy as well as stimulate your brain.
“Above all, do not lose your desire to walk: every day I walk myself into a state of well being and walk away from every illness. I have walked myself into my best thoughts, and I know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it,” Søren Kierkegaard, a Danish theologian, philosopher and poet once said.
When it comes to physical health, walking is one of the most important activities anyone can do. According to Dr David Dunstan, director of the Australian Neuroscience Research Institute and professor at the University of Melbourne, just 10 minutes of daily walking can help you live longer.
Spending at least 15 minutes every day and taking a walk outside are some of the best ways to take care of yourself. To write better and think clearly, I aim to walk for at least 30 minutes every day. It’s truly beneficial for the mind.
When you make walking a habit, you’re establishing a routine that will change how you think and improve your health at the same time.
Recommended Reads
The Ultimate Guide to Personal Productivity Methods [todoist Blog] — We’ve gathered the most powerful productivity methods and frameworks all in one convenient place. This post will give you a brief overview of the most popular and useful productivity methods, how each works, and what kind of person will find each useful. It’s designed to help you get set up with your ideal…
The psychology of impatience could make waiting more tolerable [Psyche] — If you’ve stared down the clock awaiting a test result, fidgeted in anticipation of a train that’s arriving any moment, or furiously refreshed your news feed ahead of a major announcement, you know the deep unpleasantness of having to wait…
The “blind spot” in science that’s fueling a crisis of meaning [Big Think] — Our scientific worldview has gotten stuck in an impossible contradiction, making our present crisis fundamentally a crisis of meaning. On the one hand, science appears to make human life seem ultimately insignificant.
The Joys of Getting Organized [Zen Habits] — The last couple of months, things have piled up on me: emails, tasks, random notes, a bunch of browser tabs with things I’m interested or need to do, financial stuff, etc. For the past week, I’ve been allowing myself the joys of getting organized. It’s beautiful…
Everyone’s Existential Crisis [Palladium] — Human agency—the ability to generate choices and select from among them—is not a simple matter of a person taking in direct information about the environment through their senses and making a choice based on that sensory information.
3 ideas on better living
4 questions to ponder:
Which projects give me energy? Which projects takes it away?
Which people give me energy? Which people take it away?
How can I make the most of this?
What is something that feels productive to you in the moment, but usually ends up wasting time and energy?
James Clear on wealth
“Wealth is the power to choose.
Financial wealth is the power to choose how to spend money.
Social wealth is the power to choose who to hang out with.
Time wealth is the power to choose how to spend your day.
Mental wealth is the power to choose how to spend your attention.”
Author Ann Hastings on the availability of satisfaction:
“Satisfaction is always available. It is just not always looked for. If, when you enter any experience, you enter with curiosity, respect and interest you will emerge enriched and with awareness you have been enriched. Awareness of enrichment is what satisfaction is.”
A newsletter tool I recommend
Meco — Read all your awesome newsletters on a single app. Meco is a distraction-free space for reading and discovering newsletters, separate from the inbox. Add your newsletters in seconds and liberate your inbox. Move your newsletters to a space built for reading and declutter your inbox in seconds. Enjoy newsletters in a space designed for reading. Learn More
Want your business news short and quick?
Morning Brew covers the latest news across business, finance, and tech in the most digestible way to save you time. The teams condenses the day's most important stories into a short, quick, and entertaining read. It’s read by over 4 million professionals. I read it every day. Try it, it’s free.
Work with Postanly. Get featured here.
Thanks for reading!
Until next week,
Thomas
Medium | Thinking Toolbox | The Write Life | How to Live: Lessons in Stoicism
Postanly Weekly is now a reader-supported publication. To support my work, you can upgrade to a paid subscription for $6 per month or $40 for an entire year.
I believe any kind of repetitive physical activity works just fine. Long walk in nature are probably a little bit better.
I love a long walk. Sometimes with a complex podcast, sometimes with no screens at all.
I'm a proud graduate of 'if I didn't track the steps then it didn't count'.