Our Brains Were Meant For Walking
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Our Brains Were Meant For Walking
A Neuroscience Take on a Familiar Biblical Metaphor
Have you ever wondered why walking is a favorite biblical metaphor for following Christ? I counted about 50 times when walking is used in the New Testament to picture one’s moral life, whether good or evil. The obvious reason for this metaphor is physical:
Walking implies a path, or what guides conduct: “And the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?” (Mark 7:5)
Walking implies a destination, an ethical purpose or goal: “so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him: bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God” (Colossians 1:10)
But is there more to that metaphor?
As a counselor and student of psychology, I am always curious about potential connections between these metaphors and our biopsychospiritual nature as human beings. Could it be that our brains provide additional significance to walking as an image of one’s way of life?
I recently came across a study from 2014 in which walking was determined to increase creative thinking:
“Stanford researchers found that walking boosts creative inspiration. They examined creativity levels of people while they walked versus while they sat. A person’s creative output increased by an average of 60 percent when walking.”
This research-based finding matches anecdotal evidence going back thousands of years.
Through
’s inspiring book The Lord is My Courage, I learned a cool Latin phrase:solvitur ambulando
It means “solved by walking”, and has been attributed to Augustine (4th/5th centuries AD), as well as Diogenes (4th century BC).1
As attributed to Diogenes, solvitur ambulando captures Diogenes’ clever response to his fellow philosopher Zeno claiming that all motion is an allusion. Diogenes, so the story goes, simply responded by standing up and walking away, showing that motion is real: solvitur ambulando.
But the phrase means much more than that, as the Stanford study shows. Have you yourself had that experience of solving a knotty problem or thinking of a creative solution while walking?
What does psychology suggest about the relation between walking and thinking? The 2014 Stanford study offers many possible explanations: freeing the mind through activity without purpose, exercise-induced positive mood, tapping in to more memory associations, and others. I was surprised that they didn’t explore another hypothesis: cross-communication between both hemispheres of the brain.
Walking is by necessity a bilateral (two-sided) activity: the right hemisphere of the brain controls the left side of the body, and the left hemisphere controls the right side of the body. This has been demonstrated by a number of functional imaging studies in which participants showed bilateral brain activity while walking.
I find this significant for a few reasons.
We were created with brains that have two hemispheres, and we are at our best when using both. Activating both hemispheres through walking suggests (the potential for) increased connectivity between the right and left brain.
While we ideally use both hemispheres, the right brain is designed by God to take the lead. Walking likely activates right-brain mediated attention: bodily motion (the right brain is more connected to our physical bodies than the left brain); receptivity to sensation (being outside and taking in the sights, sounds, smells, and interior bodily sensations like muscle movement); and diffuse broad awareness (not focusing on anything in particular, just open to whatever is).
It is the right brain that allows for greater integration between the hemispheres. The right brain can make use of left-brain specializations (analysis, focused attention, etc.), whereas the left brain, left to itself (pun intended), is not able to integrate contributions from the right brain.
In light of these observations, my hypothesis is that walking enables us to enter states of mind that facilitate integrative right-brain thinking.
In other words, we really do think better while walking. Solvitur ambulando.
Might that be related to Scripture’s way of picturing our embodied moral selves through walking?
While reviewing all the NT verses which use the verb “walk”, I wondered what role walking played with the 2 disciples and the risen Jesus in Luke 24. Read these verses from this familiar story slowly, paying attention to their movement. When are they walking, standing still, and walking again?
That very day two of them were going to a village named Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and they were talking with each other about all these things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing together, Jesus himself drew near and went with them. (Luke 24:13-15)
And he said to them, “What is this conversation that you are holding with each other as you walk?” And they stood still, looking sad. (Luke 24:17)
And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself. So they drew near to the village to which they were going. (Luke 24:27–28)
Based on v. 27, it seems like they had resumed walking while Jesus was giving them the most amazing Bible study recorded in human history. Of course this new insight was supernatural, revealed to them by the risen Christ. But as one of my Bible professors was fond of saying, “God ordains the means as well as the ends.” Would it devalue Christ’s “interpreting to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself” to include the physical insight-enabling role of bilateral brain hemisphere activation? Perhaps. They were walking before Jesus showed up, so walking in and of itself didn’t solve anything for them. Nevertheless, I find it highly suggestive that — and I’m admittedly reading between the lines here — Jesus didn’t interpret the Scriptures while they were standing still, but rather while they were walking.
Quote from Soren Kierkegaard
“Above all, do not lose your desire to walk. Everyday, I walk myself into a state of well-being & 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. But by sitting still, & the more one sits still, the closer one comes to feeling ill. Thus if one just keeps on walking, everything will be all right.”
Question
When was the last time you went for a walk? How long of a walk do you have to take to experience theses kinds of benefits? Sometimes even 10 minutes can do a great deal of good for me. Taking a hint from Luke 24, how about going for a walk with a friend? Is there someone you can invite for a walk this week?
Unverifiable quotes are like a rock in my shoe. I spent an unjustifiable amount of time earlier this year trying to track down an original source and came up empty-handed. K.J. Ramsey was also unsuccessful. I just spent another 15 minutes looking again and need to give up! If anyone has any knowledge or leads please let me know!
Our Brains Were Meant For Walking
It has been my habit to walk while thinking. But in a particular manner, being very right brain dominant.
I will describe the walking in a moment; but first, let me describe another 'two hemisphere' way of thinking that I've developed over many years, as as an academic. the other two hemisphere way of thinking, involves sitting at a keyboard, with my fingers of both hands flying over the keyboard, while I watch the words take life on the screen in front of me, where my focus is centered.
I verbalize what I'm thinking as I type it; at a keyboard' as though in conversation. I'm doing that right now; speaking to you and any others with interest in the hemispheres, who might run across this, , as I write these very words. As though what I am writing is taking place in a conversation, or in a small group where we are conversing about something of mutual interest.
For many years, as an academic, constrained to my desk by necessity by the time schoalry effort consumes, modern electronic ccess to the journals required me to spend countless hours laboring as an academic in 'reading for a purpose' and crystalizing what I read from the work of many others, into paradigms that fit together into a whole, that helped me understand the problems I was working to find answers to, in human health and disease. I was constrained to spend hours and hours in front of a computer screen, accessing the professional medical research literature, and in the constraint of our modern era; when there is paltry funding for medical research compared to the scope of the need, forever 'writing grants' with at times, less than a 1 in 10 chance of funding to carry out the proposed work.
To make progress in the goal if mitigating human suffering caused by disease, necessitates much work to grapple with and understand how disease impairs 'normal human physiology' at four levels-the whole person, the organ(s) primarily impacted; what the disease does in terms of disruption of normal 'physiological pathways' and their normal 'balance', and what specifically happens at a mechanisitc or molecular level.
In spite of the major efforts made for the last four decades, we still are not very far in our understanding of many disease processes; we have such limited understanding of, that we cannot resolve them or in some cases, do much to mitigate the suffering they cause to real people. I wish the church were actually commited to supporting efforts to mitigate human suffering, following in the actual footsteps of Jesus as HE modelled how to speak the very gospel. Imagine what our world would look like, if we looked at the example Jesus gave us that all four actual 'gospels' show-and followed Him by ministering to the hurting in our world? Imagine what might happen if we resolved to love our neighbor by finding better ways to treat (and prevent) diseases that cause so much suffering. What would happen if the church decided to work in UNITY of mind, heart, spirit and purpose, and together, chose to speak God's love to the HURTING in our world?
If we were able to work TOGETHER to bring the LOVE OF GOD in such a tangible way to hurting people, we could accomplish MUCH and bring Glory to our Lord Jesus, together.
what if we supported those who have spent time learning how to help people struggling with the impact of 'relational sin'-abuse? and asked them to help US learn what WE can do, as a faith community, to help EVEN THE PEOPLE IN OUR OWN COMMUNITY who struggle because they've been sinned against in a very personal, invasive, manner?
But somehow, that isn't the 'modern gospel'. Though it seems to me, that this IS how JESUS spoke the gospel, day by day, during HIS three years of 'gospel ministry'. but that's a longer discussion :).
Back to the point (right hemisphere dominance sometimes makes me bring in other related issues), I have found that my thinking process does take me to a bihemispheric engagement of my hands, and that when my thinking intensifies; it almost always propels me up out of my chair, to start pacing!
I did take periodic breaks; was known for the 'walks' I took-when engaging in a topic that I shared interest with, I would walk to a colleague's office, to share the fruit of some productive thinking and extend the discussion into a face to face conversation. Such interactions are encouraged in academics; and should be something we encourage in our churches as well! Which might take some effort to structure in ways that are workable.
Sitting at a a keyboard, or face to face whole brain thinking seems to be facilitated when there is a person to converse with, to aid in framing my thoughts. A real person who exists. Whether i was writing a summary of a dozen (or a couple hundred) research articles for a journal club or as a prequel to a grant; some collaborative effort was always in view. Some meaningful purpose to the reading and thinking and engagement of my whole mind, that was going to involve collegial participation by the community I belonged to. We see this, too in the life of Jesus; a process of Jesus engaging in minstry with others always around him; ministry and AND conversing, engages our 'whole minds' in ways that do seem to be optimal and fruitful!
Now, retired and often finding myself alone; I still grapple with complex topics; looking for ways to engage with other like minded souls; sitting at my keyboard; thinking as I draft something to communicate to another like minded soul for our mutual edification. Forcing both hemispheres to engage in this continual background text, while speaking the words I write and listening to make sure that 'they make sense'. Almost always, when I am thinking, someone else is 'in view'. God designed us 'not to be alone' but to live in community in a fullness we have gotten further and further away from, in my lifetime.
Of course, being right brained, I need to bring up a notable exception; when I read for pure pleasure-reading sci fi and fantasy where the imagination is called into play-the right hemisphere dominant, with good character development, I like to sit in my favorite chair, in a comfortable place, fire going, and engage in a way that lets me 'escape' into that world the writer has created and leave my surroundings to concentrate. Films allow us to do this, too. I can do that in watching something for entertainment, or playing a computer game; i can also find myself wholly engaged in God's Creation, as I labor in stewardship of our yard and landscape, or do some gardneing, or simply 'enjoy the Beauty God has endued throughout His Creation'-or sitting at a miscroscope, examining the fascinating Wonder of the intricacy and complexity of His Awe inducing Design of us!
But back to the topic at hand: when something begins to coalesce into the larger paradigm the right hemisphere delights in, I find myself compelled to stand up, PACE and often engage in a conversation with great energy, in my mind, muttering aloud; the paradigm is taking shape, and now i want to help it coalesce and fill in all the details that left hemisphere is good at; pacing energetically, still focused on a dialogue with someone I know who shares interest in the topic; seeking now to solidify the paradigm by engaging in 'rhetoric'-persuasive language that adds substance to what i am now beginning to see as it emerges as a whole, with details filing in to bring the paradigm to greater solidity.
So YES, walking is a very vital part of actively thinking with our 'whole minds'!
I found two references, along with the standard 'legend' attributing the phrase to Diogenes (no source available).
The current usage of the phrase seems to be associated from the 1800's, from this source, which traces appearance of words and phrases in dictionaries (examine the graph of frequency of appearance, it first appears early in the 1800's, I don't know if they identify the specific dictionary in which the phrase appears, or its notations:
https://www.etymonline.com/word/solvitur%20ambulando
This source, the Oxford English Dictionary, cites 10 sources for the phrase in literature:
https://www.oed.com/search/advanced/Quotations?textTermText0=solvitur%20ambulando&textTermOpt0=WordPhrase&dateOfUseFirstUse=false&page=1&sortOption=AZ