In this post we explore mindful walking and how paying attention during exercise can transform your experience.
Many of us walk to clear our minds — to think, to plan, to reset.
Great minds like Darwin, Einstein, and Nietzsche all wrote about how walking helped their thinking.
But what if, instead of thinking while walking, you tried thinking about walking?
Mindful walking
This has more in common with meditation than physical exercise, but it will carry over to your exercise programme if you do it well.
Pick a quiet route that you know well to avoid distractions and start walking at a gentle pace.
The first thing to notice is that it’s not exactly clear how you’re doing this.
What is causing you to place one foot in front of the other? Forget about the scientific explanations, just focus on the raw experience.
How is this happening and what control do you have over it?
Sure you can stop, walk faster, or feign a limp, but what is in charge of this?
Ok, now notice the sensations coming from the bottom of your feet. Are they similar, or do you appear to be landing and pushing off from different parts of each foot?
Does one seem to spread out into the ground more as you put your weight through it? Or does one appear stiffer and less mobile?
Right, now move your attention to your lower legs, and in particular your calves.
Forget about what you may or may not know about the muscles involved however, just focus on the experience.
Is one side more apparent to you than the other? Is your attention drawn to different parts of each calf? The outside? Inside? Higher or lower?
Don’t make a judgement on what you feel. Nothing is good or bad, just focus on what is.
Continue this line of enquiry up to your knees, hips, and into your trunk.
Trying performing these investigations at different times of the day. Before a training session and after. Notice the differences each time and that no two days are exactly the same.
In time, you may find this carries over to other parts of your exercise programme, whether you’re in the weight room, or on the treadmill.
Focus on the how, not the what
In exercise we tend to focus on the statistics. How much we’ve done, or how fast we’ve done it. Rarely do we draw our attention to how we’re doing it.
This can have broader implications for your mental health and your motivation to exercise throughout your lifetime.
Get curious about the how.
Try it and let me know what happens.