Walking Encourages Creativity And Happiness

Perhaps the title of this article has surprised you. Can the simple habit of walking promote creativity and happiness ?

The neurologist José Ángel Obeso, director of the Centro Integral en Neurosciencias in Madrid, has contact with people who are going through processes of depression.

His patients have made him see how therapeutic it is to prescribe “one hour of daily walk.”

And even more, walk, if possible, through a natural environment.

As you already know, depression, or even spending very long periods with stress and anxiety, cause our brain to present a deficit in basic cognitive processes: memory, comprehension capacity, creativity, and so on.

If we walked every day, all these dimensions would improve remarkably.

Now you have no excuses. After reading this article, we are sure that you are going to put this effective and therapeutic remedy into practice: Walking!

The “automated brain” and unhappiness

There is a really interesting aspect that we must keep in mind.

Habits that, without our realizing it, are causing our brain to end up  “automated” and, therefore, stressed.

If you want to reinforce creativity and happiness, don’t forget these aspects:

• The greatest enemy for our brain is routine. The simple act of doing the same things every day causes us to fall into a kind of depression and an inevitable discouragement.
• We have some memory lapses because few things seem interesting to us anymore. Faced with low motivation, the memory is less.
• Routine lowers our spirits and discouragement, consequently, notably affects the brain, we establish fewer neural connections.
• Day by day, our brain already acts in an automated way. It is governed by established guidelines, as, for example, any computer that we have programmed would work.

According to Dr. José Ángel Obeso, automated brains occur especially in large cities.

Among those people who hardly dedicate time to their own emotional needs, who live in large cities surrounded by pollution and very high doses of stress.

Creativity and happiness when walking

According to Dr. José Ángel Obeso, the benefits are not noticeable on the first day, but when we have been in for a week and walking is another habit in our lives.

It is then that we begin to notice its therapeutic results:

• When walking, the brain does not have to worry about anything.
• You get an extra dose of oxygen and the pure air of nature.
• It is at that moment when our frontal lobe begins to be stimulated, the one that is related to creativity and mood.

• You release endorphins naturally.
• Faced with a better mood, an increase in creativity and happiness appears.
• There are no pressures, the levels of the cortisol hormone that is secreted with stress are reduced and those walls that usually bring us negativity are broken down.
• It is the moment when we see things differently. We feel more relaxed, more enthusiastic, more confident.
• Get out of your routine, work or home by simply starting to walk through a natural and open space.
• If we walk through our cities, we continue to breathe in many of those polluted particles. Ideally, our lungs are filled with pure oxygen. It is also necessary that our eyes meet new scenarios, with new stimuli with which our brain is enriched.

From our space we invite you, once again, to walk every day for half an hour.

You will see how, after weeks, you have improved in physical and emotional health.

Walking is much better than a pain reliever or vitamins. Test it!