52 Ways to Walk: The Surprising Science of Walking for Wellness and Joy, One Week at a Time

Product Information

Is walking an important form of exercise and relaxation for you? Then you would enjoy this book as well. The activities are so varied and the information in each chapter is well presented and motivational.

I think beyond that, there’s this is very, I think it’s quite primal, sense of connection that you get when you look up and have that night sky above you. A decade ago, scientists discovered that loud noises stopped new neurons from forming in the brain, in the regions linked to memory and learning. Two hours of silence every day produced new neurons. Walking in a quiet place allows the body to reset and the brain to create new neurons. Amble Amid Trees Walking strengthens our bodies, calms our minds and lifts our spirits. But it does so much more than this. Our vision, hearing, respiration, sleep, cognition, memory, blood pressure, sense of smell and balance are all enhanced by how we walk. For instance:It sort of puts so many things into perspective so you feel both sort of enlarged, in a mysterious way, but also feel shrunk down, you’re this tiny ant in this huge, huge cosmos. Walking in the rain, for example, is healthy because the air pollution clears up and nature’s molecules move around, she says. Full Book Name: 52 Ways to Walk: The Surprising Science of Walking for Wellness and Joy, One Week at a Time What I appreciate also about the book is the ability to keep the walks interesting by playing a random game. One of the primary reasons people don’t continue a walking practice is boredom. And I get it. Walking the same route the same way becomes more of a mindless activity. I love that 52 Ways to Walk offers a fresh walking activity every week. As a young adult, Annabel bought her first car and enjoyed driving it around her little town. She also accepted a desk job. Soon she noticed changes in her body and wellness level.

Any walk can be turned into a more rewarding and beneficial experience. When we walk in the cold, for example, our bodies use more glucose to warm us up. As glucose enhances cognition, we think better in cold climates. Interestingly, cognition improves even when looking at images of cold things. According to the author, mild cold = 16C. That made me laugh as 16C is considered pleasant weather in a Scottish spring or summer! There is another chapter where the author notes she lost her sense of smell due to COVID but then later in the chapter tells us she went on "smell walks" with the aforementioned lost sense. So either this book needed another edit to not allow readers to misconstrue these chapters, or the readers are being lied to.Annabel grew up in a carless family. Her father never learned to drive and her mother failed her driving test seven times. The family lived in remote places without access to public transportation, so if they needed something, they walked to obtain it.

This short, enthusiastic guide extollingwalking’s mental and physical benefits, and will motivate you to get outside and move, step by step, all year.”— AARP The rain [also] really shakes up all of the plants and the soil … and all these molecules start moving around within tree trunks and leaves, and these molecules are incredibly good for us … [they] are helping us feel more relaxed.Ways to Walk is published by Bloomsbury in the UK and Putnam Penguin Random House in the US under Annabel Streets. I wonder if sometimes it’s about perception,” she says, about walking alone. “At home we know all the horror stories and all their locations, but when we’re elsewhere we don’t have that knowledge. We don’t know about the horrible things, so we think we’re safe. And nine times out of 10 we are. We look at women in the past who’ve done big journeys and think they’re intrepid or brave, but they also didn’t have daily news stories about what could go wrong.” As she returned to walking frequently, she made two rules for herself: walk instead of using the car, unless absolutely necessary and convert as many sedentary activities as possible into walking activities. We might think we know everything we need to about walking but there is always more to discover. This book is about how walking is connected both to old wisdom and new scientific frontiers of discovery … If you’re not a habitual walker this book will give you good reasons why you should get started and, if you are experienced, ways to keep it fresh … Fascinating.’– Lauren Laverne