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  1. #1

    Default How walking makes us healthier, happier and brainier.

    https://getpocket.com/explore/item/i...=pocket-newtab

    Maybe hiking is not merely taking a vacation or hiking "is only walking" as some maintain.

  2. #2

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    Further Japanese data, mounds of it, additionally substantiate the case.
    Here's a start to researching the benefits further by reviewing these resources and the ample cited footnotes.

    https://time.com/5259602/japanese-forest-bathing/
    https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19568835/
    https://www.theguardian.com/environm...west-wellbeing

  3. #3
    Registered User hobbs's Avatar
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    Dogwood theres numerous articles published in pshycology magazine on the benefits of hiking and other perodicals. Pshycology today Etc omnt he web you been online for awhile at the list...But are you looking at just being in nature?
    My love for life is quit simple .i get uo in the moring and then i go to bed at night. What I do inbween is to occupy my time. Cary Grant

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    Georgia novelist Terry Kay was perhaps the last prominent American writer to have grown up plowing behind a mule. He said that physical labor of that kind fired the imagination, allowing a person to think and imagine and create.

    Today, we don't plow behind mules, but physical labor like backpacking treks can serve the same purpose. Perhaps pushing a lawn mower is similar.

    But electronics has encroached on the freedom of the mind to roam unimpeded.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Dan Roper View Post
    Georgia novelist Terry Kay was perhaps the last prominent American writer to have grown up plowing behind a mule. He said that physical labor of that kind fired the imagination, allowing a person to think and imagine and create.

    Today, we don't plow behind mules, but physical labor like backpacking treks can serve the same purpose. Perhaps pushing a lawn mower is similar.


    As a push-mower owner, I can't say it works for me. I'm focused on the job at hand, keeping my line, watching for stuff I don't want to run over. Power tools and daydreaming are not compatible, IMO.

    However, I do agree generally that walks allow a person to "think and imagine and create", and that continually attending to our electronics are detrimental to that. Not that a podcast can't be thought provoking, but you have to allocate some mental room to do your own ruminating. I don't need a lot, but I need some.

    Where walks and other physical activity really help IMO is in getting good sleep. If you have a desk job or otherwise don't have to do much manual labor in your life, it's not as easy to sleep at night if you are only mentally tired, but not physically tired. And good sleep definitely helps in terms of health, happiness, and mental acuity.

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    Shinrin,yoku, forest bathing .
    It also takes a week alone in the forest to reset our internal clocks.

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    I'm a push-mower too, Time Zone, and just a short way down the road from you. (This evening I'll be bike riding at Chickamauga, another good way to let the mind wander.) I work behind a desk most of the day, so push-mowing is part of my way to offset the sitting. I do find mowing mentally relaxing, for basically the reasons mentioned above. But hiking, biking, running are especially good ways to mull things over.

    Sometimes I ponder the magnificence of the thinking and writing done by the Founding Fathers, plus others like Abraham Lincoln. None of them went to organized schools. Tutors or sometimes just self-taught. Yet brilliant. I think part of the reason is that they were given time to mature, to think, to imagine. With every good intention, we push schooling hard from very early age, filling the mind with activities and information possibly at the cost of inspiration.

  8. #8

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    Never heard of the sea squirt, that's weird. I can attest to walking helping with depression. When threatened by it, I can always pinpoint the source to not having walked enough.

  9. #9

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    Quote Originally Posted by hobbs View Post
    Dogwood theres numerous articles published in pshycology magazine on the benefits of hiking and other perodicals. Pshycology today Etc omnt he web you been online for awhile at the list...But are you looking at just being in nature?
    TU Hobbs. Sometimes I like just being in Nature not hiking but just being there. Other times it's Nature and hiking,...or paddling, climbing, cycling,trail running, or strolling through a Botanical Garden, contemplating trees or a geological formation or a water or flowing lava, walking across Central or Golden Gate Park,...

  10. #10
    Is it raining yet?
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    A physically active day certainly helps one sleep well, but a hard thought day also taxes the body. Thinking continuously can burn thousands of additional calories. I think it's the lazy day, where you're just watching tv and doing nothing that doesn't tax the mind or body that creates problems.
    Be Prepared

  11. #11

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    Quote Originally Posted by BlackCloud View Post
    I think it's the lazy day, where you're just watching tv and doing nothing that doesn't tax the mind or body that creates problems.
    There is an old saw that goes "Idle hands are the devil's workshop", and while that is certainly true, I think it applies to one's mind as well. From what I have seen of people as they age, those who keep themselves busy, whether it is working with their hands with a hobby or even playing old sol', tend to maintain their faculties a lot better than people who just "veg out".

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    Quote Originally Posted by Dan Roper View Post
    Georgia novelist Terry Kay was perhaps the last prominent American writer to have grown up plowing behind a mule. He said that physical labor of that kind fired the imagination, allowing a person to think and imagine and create.

    Today, we don't plow behind mules, but physical labor like backpacking treks can serve the same purpose. Perhaps pushing a lawn mower is similar.

    But electronics has encroached on the freedom of the mind to roam unimpeded.
    When I was was in high school I did my math homework while mowing the lawn. I would work on it first, then I would memorize the problems I was stuck on and work them out while mowing.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Jonnycat View Post
    There is an old saw that goes "Idle hands are the devil's workshop", and while that is certainly true, I think it applies to one's mind as well. From what I have seen of people as they age, those who keep themselves busy, whether it is working with their hands with a hobby or even playing old sol', tend to maintain their faculties a lot better than people who just "veg out".
    My grandmother kept her own hose until she was 90. She finally had to move into a nursing home after she broke a hip while gardening and it took a weekend for anyone to find her. At "the home" she complained that everyone there was so old, when in fact she was the oldest resident on the day she moved in

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    Another line of study connects walking and other repetitive physical activities such as knitting to the same mental benefits of meditation. Meditation often involves sitting but it is not the physical inactivity but the mental focus, or mindfulness that is important. Walking is ideal for this. An example is a meditation labryinth where you follow a circuitous path. The AT is just a 2000 mile meditation labryinth stretched out into a more linear geometry.

  15. #15

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    Quote Originally Posted by Odd Man Out View Post
    Meditation often involves sitting but it is not the physical inactivity but the mental focus, or mindfulness that is important. Walking is ideal for this. An example is a meditation labyrinth where you follow a circuitous path. The AT is just a 2000 mile meditation labryinth stretched out into a more linear geometry.
    Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance comes to mind WRT finding meditation in everyday activities. Physical exercise, including things like hiking and yoga can be really effective for developing a sense of focus and transcendence.

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    From the cited article, ". . . as O’Mara puts it. The larval sea squirt knew when it was hungry and how to move about, and it could tell up from down. But, when it fused on to a rock to start its new vegetative existence, it consumed its redundant eye, brain and spinal cord."

    Hmm, in the government world we call such lifeforms chiefs and directors.
    "That's the thing about possum innards - they's just as good the second day." - Jed Clampett

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    Quote Originally Posted by Dogwood View Post
    TU Hobbs. Sometimes I like just being in Nature not hiking but just being there. Other times it's Nature and hiking,...or paddling, climbing, cycling,trail running, or strolling through a Botanical Garden, contemplating trees or a geological formation or a water or flowing lava, walking across Central or Golden Gate Park,...
    Have to agree its peaceful and harmonious...I enjoy moving as well as just being motionlist...
    My love for life is quit simple .i get uo in the moring and then i go to bed at night. What I do inbween is to occupy my time. Cary Grant

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    Quote Originally Posted by Odd Man Out View Post
    When I was was in high school I did my math homework while mowing the lawn. I would work on it first, then I would memorize the problems I was stuck on and work them out while mowing.
    On a 5-6 week LASH on the CDT, a hiker passed my hidden campsite early one morning. I arose and left camp 10 minutes later, a record for me. Not far ahead, the trail diverged. Although I wished for a short conversation, I planned to take the trail less traveled. As I hiked along I worked out the algebra to see if I could catch him. 3 mph versus 4 mph , 10 min head start. Convert the units. to minutes or to hours? Maybe he's going faster. Should I solve for the difference in speeds? But I still need his speed. I really need some caffeine. I solved the algebra in probably the most difficult way. Even as my mind focused on the equation and keeping up a pace, it wandered to the 6-7 moose browsing in the creek thickets as he weaved in and out near them. As he came into sight, I started estimating how fast I was closing in. I hope he enjoyed the unexpected arrival of another person in the middle of nowhere as I caught him just in time. We had a nice conversation, he went on his hike and I on mine.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Daybreak View Post
    On a 5-6 week LASH on the CDT, a hiker passed my hidden campsite early one morning. I arose and left camp 10 minutes later, a record for me. Not far ahead, the trail diverged. Although I wished for a short conversation, I planned to take the trail less traveled. As I hiked along I worked out the algebra to see if I could catch him. 3 mph versus 4 mph , 10 min head start. Convert the units. to minutes or to hours? Maybe he's going faster. Should I solve for the difference in speeds? But I still need his speed. I really need some caffeine. I solved the algebra in probably the most difficult way. Even as my mind focused on the equation and keeping up a pace, it wandered to the 6-7 moose browsing in the creek thickets as he weaved in and out near them. As he came into sight, I started estimating how fast I was closing in. I hope he enjoyed the unexpected arrival of another person in the middle of nowhere as I caught him just in time. We had a nice conversation, he went on his hike and I on mine.
    I think we derailed????

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    I had to read it a couple times that's quite beautiful thank you.

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