Walking is a simple way to improve your physical health and encourage creativity

Alternet  March 18, 2018

When we walk, we engage both sides of the body, simultaneously activating both the left and right sides of the brain. Hartmann explains that both hemispheres of the brain join forces through the bilateral therapy of walking, in order to break up the patterning of a traumatic experience that has become "stuck" in the brain.

Walking for creativity and problem solving

"The legs are the wheels of creativity." —Albert Einstein

Creativity and problem solving are psychologically similar processes. Both combine a linear approach—how do I get from here to there?—with the need to randomly access memories and ideas that may, in a linear world, seem completely unrelated.

One of the unique hallmarks of bilateral activity is that it gives access to the whole brain, making walking and other forms of bilateral work/play useful for enhancing creativity and problem solving. Resources and strengths, helpful learnings and experiences that date all the way back from childhood are available when walking, and can be brought to bear on current problems or creative endeavors.

Walking is a grounding experience, a step-by-step, moment-by-moment contact with the earth. Whether by some mystical force or some as yet unexplained psychological phenomenon, perhaps deeply rooted in our genes and stretching back over millions of years of evolutionary ancestry, feeling connected with the earth produces a liberating experience for most people.

Walking also provides us with a break from the state of normal everyday existence. Looking at the same walls, the same furniture, the same place and people often anchors us to a particular state of mind. When we go out for a walk, that state is broken, and new states of mind and emotion provoked by new sounds, sights, smells, and sensations offer access to new ways of knowing and understanding ourselves and our problems or opportunities.