How Walking Changes Your Brain and Confidence
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[00:00:00] Ever feel like a simple walk could change your mood and your confidence? Well, actually it can. Science says it can. Today we're diving in to talk about the effects that walking has on your brain and how it activates your body confidence and your mental health. Welcome to the Creative Life in Motion podcast. This is the gap between where you are and where you want to be. And guess what? We don't wait until we reach our goals till to be happy.
We fall in love with who we are being on the way. I'm your host, Karen, and. Today's topic is very like near and dear to my heart because I feel like on this channel and on my podcast, like if you're, if you're watching this on YouTube, this is on the YouTube channel. A lot of it has to do with walking, but.
What my entire vision was was walking for creativity and the whole YouTube [00:01:00] algorithm got kind of wind and grip around walking for weight loss. And that's where I was kind of taking my content. And you know what? I'm over it. Um, if you want walking for weight loss or weight loss tips and tricks and whatnot, this is probably not the right channel for you.
I add walking to my toolkit because it's something of, um, overall health relief. To me. It does help me maintain a healthy body weight and, and good physique. But at over 50, I'm, I'm done trying. All the hacks and tricks and tips to lose weight and you know, if you do have weight to lose and walking is your number one tool to do that.
I think that you're on the right path and taking the right steps, pun intended, but let's talk more about. [00:02:00] You know, the creativity and the mental health that comes with adding, walking to your life as a, a piece of you that actually is activating your higher self, your higher being, your more creative self, the better business person you are, the better entrepreneur you are, the better kick butt high performance leader you are.
If you move your body and walking is the easiest way. So let's really dive into the neuroscience on this because it's, I think it's really fascinating how something as simple as taking a daily walk can really boost your confidence and the way you feel about yourself, no matter what your body type or size is.
So let's
Talk about first the neuroscience behind walking. When you [00:03:00] walk, several key areas of your brain just begin to light up, right? Including the prefrontal cortex, which is. Responsible for your all, your decision making and self-control and the hippocampus of which I'm not really sure where that is. It's in the brain, but it plays a big role in memory.
Walking also releases and it triggers the release of neurotransmitters, right? Those like dopamine and serotonin and. Think of about endorphins. Those natural chemicals are gonna improve your mood. They're gonna reduce anxiety and sharpen your thinking. It doesn't really have to be a very long walk either. You could do this in something as short as a 10 minute walk. It doesn't have to take a lot of time. In fact, it might take you longer to get your shoes [00:04:00] on and to take them off, off at the end of the walk.
Then it does actually get that benefit of those, all of those neurotransmitter. Like hits. So how does it come into the effect of walking and body Confidence Movement actually helps you to become more aware of your body and how your body feels. So if you've been hanging around with me long enough, you know that I like to help people like.
Monitor their health on, on a way of like, really energy wise rather than scale wise or size wise. Like how energetic do you feel? And, and, and how could we measure that? So when you're going on a daily walk and you don't have any mirrors with you or scales with you, you get to like legitimately connect with your body and kind of figure out like.
Where am I tight? You know, what day can I move a little faster? [00:05:00] How? How am I feeling today? Like, how's my body really feeling? What needs some nourishment?
This increased body awareness can really improve specific body confidence because when we strip ourselves away and we allow ourselves to be in our body, the gratitude for everything that our body has done for us can actually start to take shape and be a tangible thing. Interesting. Like.
Studies do show that regular walking and physical activity are linked to a, a more positive body image. It's, it's not just about appearance, it's about feeling good in your own skin. And I don't think this happens overnight. I think it's like the practice of rinse and repeat and continuing to take yourself back into the fact that we are all born in all different [00:06:00] shapes and sizes, and the ultimate goal is to, to just ensure that our heart and our lungs and our body and everything can continue.
To feel good and move well through time and space and through the decades. So whatever we want to do 10 years from now, 20 years from now, we have to practice. And that includes mobility, things just as simple as walking. And the art of doing that day after day after day after day is actually going to help you boost your confidence because you're saying yes to you every single day.
So think about that for a second. How would that mean to, like, if you were just saying yes to yourself, what, what would that mean for you if you were saying yes to yourself every single day? For 10 minutes, for 15 minutes, for half an hour, for 60 minutes for however long you want it to [00:07:00] be. You know, when like, like I was saying, when when we're stripped away from the mirrors, when we're stripped away from what we look like and we just like get to be ourselves.
There seems to be like, kind of this sense of, um, super wow powers, super wows, super powers, in us. And then all of a sudden, you know, we might catch a glimpse of ourselves in a mirror or in a picture, and we're like, Ew. And all of a sudden all that confidence goes away. I was recently took a trip to Italy and we decided that we were gonna climb one of the big mountainous, I think it's probably just a hill, but it was long and it was steep and in Sicily, and I remember feeling very like victorious.
Probably one of the hardest hikes I had done in a while. It [00:08:00] took a couple hours to get up there and I was feeling really good and confident about my body. Um, really good and confident about myself. And later on that day, we went back to the hotel, had a shower, and I put on a dress and I started taking.
Some pictures 'cause I felt beautiful and I felt strong. And then I look back at the pictures and I was like, gross, I look so horrible. So how can one body feel so good? In one moment, and then not good in in the other. It's because we're conditioned that we need to look a certain way to be accepted, to be accepted as living in a fit body, and so it's a conditioned response.
Whereas [00:09:00] mobility and health, it comes in all sizes. And when you strip away all of that conditioning and all of those feelings, what you're left with is how you feel connected in your body. You know, like there was at one point. I was talking to someone at some point and they were telling me about this, um, project that was done with a, a bunch of girls where they, they took away their mirrors for like a week or something like that, and the level of confidence rose like immensely just from not being connected to a look, but being connected to.
Soul spirit source self. I know it's deep, but we're talking about neuroscience here, so we have to get like beyond, you know, beyond just [00:10:00] the physical appearance. We're talking about belief systems and what's in the brain and how we can activate confidence through movement. We are gonna talk, touch a little bit on the mental health benefits of walking.
I think these are widespread and wide known. I, I feel like there's endless content about it, but I wouldn't be serving if I didn't. Bring this up. It, it is a natural stress reliever, right? Where you could just like drop everything and walk out. We've all heard that saying, you'll feel so much better if you just go outside and take a walk, even if it's for 10 minutes.
I think if you're anything like me, you've been in those moments where it's like, the last thing I wanna do is go for a walk. I'm tired. Did you know that Sometimes. It's just brain tired and your body really needs to move that energy through you. So if you've had a really tough day, a lot of thinking, [00:11:00] a lot of, um, maybe struggle or you know, like.
Resistance or anything that has to do with the brain that has to continue to work and work and work. If you're studying, if you're working at on an intense project, and then at the end of the day you feel so fatigued, all you wanna do is just like sit on the couch and eat ice cream and watch Netflix because you're so tired, yet you didn't move your body.
What your body actually needs is a change in activation. And that'll allow your mental health to stay risen because it will release all of the energy that does not belong to you. And you'll find that if you just start, if you just start, you know, two or three, four or five minutes into it, you are going to feel way better than that pint of ice cream and the [00:12:00] Netflix binge.
Because that's just gonna drag you down some more because you're, you're still feeding your, your brain stuff. Um, it might just be in a, in, in a different area. But what really needs to happen is that energy needs to move through and out of you in some fresh air and disconnection, and that will really help your mental health.
Try it if you haven't already.
Some other really easy ways to add walking to your day. Um, you can walk in meetings instead of sitting, you know, I mean, that's a given. I think that advice is out there a bajillion times, but do we take it? I usually don't. Um, and you know, here's why I don't is because I find that. At over 50, I am so done multitasking.
I wanna be, wherever I am, I wanna be all there. So I'm, if I'm out for a [00:13:00] walk, I wanna be out for a walk. If I'm on a meeting, I wanna be on a meeting. So for me, what works for me is actually making sure that I schedule that time to do it, and it's non-negotiable, like it's part of my job as a human. To go for a walk because I gotta practice these legs and these feet and these ankles.
So I said it before and I'm gonna say it again. It doesn't have to be long. It takes as little as five minutes to start. Transporting those neuro transporters of, of feel good hormones and release and serotonin and dopamine and all of that stuff,
and it's going to give you a confidence boost because. It just does because you're out moving your body and you are taking control of something in your life that you have control over. Nothing breeds more [00:14:00] confidence than taking control of something you have control over and making it for the greater good so that you can continue to grow and.
You know, have this human experience that we have.
So start with five minutes. Okay. Five minutes.
Try to be very mindful during your walk so that you can actually really tune into yourself. Like I said earlier, you can tune into your breath, into your steps, how things move. If it's a day to go faster, if it's a day to go slower, you can hear the birds and the bees and the traffic and the horns and the construction.
It's all collective kind of beautiful white noise. That, um, is also part of the human experience and, you know, getting out in your neighborhood and, and looking at [00:15:00] people and what they're doing and their yards. It expands your creative thinking, it expands your brain. It also gets you away. From whatever it is you're doing.
And one of the, the biggest gifts that I usually get that I think is kind of like has to do with the whole brain and the whole confidence is, is that if I'm working on something, I always have my voice recorder handy because a lot of times I'll get the answer that I was looking for on the walk. And, and it it, and it'll just drop out of the sky.
But that doesn't happen if I'm multitasking. That doesn't happen if I'm talking to my mom or if I'm listening to a podcast or a playlist. That only happens when I'm listening to the ambient construction and cars and birds and bees and dogs barking and lawn mowing and, and, but there's nothing like still the brain is [00:16:00] empty.
You know what I mean? You know what I'm saying? It's, it's such a beautiful thing to experience and you know, I know the difference as a Gen Xer of like before being connected to the world and after being connected to the world and it's, it's really hard to disconnect for a lot of people, myself included.
Um, but giving yourself that break and then. You know, I'm starting to break more, um, is really gonna serve you and your body confidence, um, in, you know, in years to come.
so to sum this all up, taking a walk is super simple and you know. Uh, a while back I created a walking plan. It started with a challenge, and then it built up to a different, uh, a, a bigger walking plan. And the whole [00:17:00] idea of that was not to be like this standalone product that I continue to like, have people enter and, and whatnot.
So I decided, okay, you know what? This is free. It's completely free. And it's a walking plan that works. It helps to get you in the habit with lots of different, like varieties of different walks in it and a schedule that you could follow if you like. Lots of other goodies in there. And it's, it's completely free.
And if you wanna know a little bit more, building a walking habit that works. I've queued up another video for you right here. Or if you're ready to just dive right in, you'll find it in the description below this video. You'll also find lots of other things on my YouTube channel about walking, like the, you know, the benefits of silent walking and how to get started.
Yeah. A lot of them have to do, um, or [00:18:00] talk about weight loss, but I always like bring people back I find to like. Yeah, that's a side effect of consistency if there's weight to lose. But let's talk about like the mental weightness that's lifted when we take care of ourselves, and that's what this channel is about.
So if that's what you're here for and, and you'd love to continue hanging out together as I. Move away from walking for weight loss and more into like what are the other benefits of walking and what are the benefits of creativity and how do those work together to make us our healthiest ever? Did you know that, I mean, this is creative life in motion, right?
Um, did you know that there is a fourth pillar of health? So we have [00:19:00] exercise, right? Eating well and we have mindset. Did you know what that fourth pillar is? The fourth pillar is creativity. So we all have that creativity in us of some sort, and when we activate that, it allows us better. Longer, stronger health in the long run.
So what is your creative outlet? For me, it's writing, sharing stories with you. Uh, and, uh, I do that every day and I, and I walk every day and I have a system and if you wanna know that system, this is something that I'll be sharing, um, throughout our next year together. So, yeah. I think that's it for now.
I'd love to hear from you, um, what you know, resonated with you, how, how's your summer going, thanks for hanging out with me on [00:20:00] another episode of the Creative Life in Motion Show.
, I love reading your comments and I love our conversations that we have back and forth. If you're listening on your podcast player, you can find the video version of this episode on YouTube where you can dive into the comments and we can talk back and forth on the podcast player.
The only way that I know that this is really, um, enjoyable. Material for you or that it resonated in some way is if you go to your podcast app and leave a review of, of what episode that you listen to. Or you can also contact me through, um, my website and my email. So I love hearing from you. Uh, it's the reason why I continue to hit record.
So, uh, thanks for being here. This is my creative life in motion. What's yours? I'll see you next time. Bye.
