The Power of Walking, Talking and Positive Thinking

Chuck Norris
Thu, 05 Dec 2024 21:00:00 -0800
Lifestyle

Say you happen upon an older individual walking along at a brisk pace. It's midday and they are wearing just regular street clothes, nothing that would be considered exercise wear. But they are walking in a way that says exercising is exactly what they are doing. You notice them because they are talking out loud as they walk, engaged in an animated conversation with no one, as far as you can tell. There is no phone in their hand and no one in earshot except you. "How strange," you might say to yourself. "There's someone that needs some serious psychological help."

Maybe not.

Maybe they've been inspired by a new study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine that found that "if Americans over 40 walked as much each day as the most physically active members of the population, they could extend their life span by at least 5 years."
Updated: Fri Dec 06, 2024

Say you happen upon an older individual walking along at a brisk pace. It's midday and they are wearing just regular street clothes, nothing that would be considered exercise wear. But they are walking in a way that says exercising is exactly what they are doing. You notice them because they are talking out loud as they walk, engaged in an animated conversation with no one, as far as you can tell. There is no phone in their hand and no one in earshot except you. "How strange," you might say to yourself. "There's someone that needs some serious psychological help."

Maybe not.

Maybe they've been inspired by a new study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine that found that "if Americans over 40 walked as much each day as the most physically active members of the population, they could extend their life span by at least 5 years."

As Ryan Glatt, senior brain health coach and director of the FitBrain Program at Pacific Neuroscience Institute at Providence Saint John's Health Center in Santa Monica, California, explains to Finn Cohen of Medical News Today, "the benefits are most significant for individuals who are inactive, as even small increases in physical activity substantially reduce the risk of noncommunicable diseases and premature death." This recent observational study provides yet another link between exercise and longevity, writes Cohen.

"There is no specific cutoff age for the benefits of walking," Glatt adds. "Even individuals who begin walking later in life can see meaningful improvements in health and life expectancy."

Dr. Christopher Schneble, a sports medicine physician and assistant professor of orthopedics and rehabilitation at Yale School of Medicine, explains, "as we get older, our reserve tends to decrease, as does our maximal achievable fitness level. If we condition ourselves, we can place ourselves at a much better level of health that will better shield us from some of the modifiable perils that unavoidably come with aging. ... The most important thing is trying to maintain the highest level of fitness that you can, regardless of age."

But what's with talking to oneself as you walk swiftly along? That can't be healthy. Or maybe it can, says a recent Time magazine report.

One practitioner of this talking-out-loud habit says it helps her "achieve a state of calmness and confidence." According to Los Angeles resident Ellie Shoja, "it slows down your thinking just by the nature of verbalizing something. ... You become more focused, and your anxiety levels and stress lower significantly."

Thomas Brinthaupt is a professor emeritus of psychology at Middle Tennessee State University. He explains to Time magazine's Angela Haupt that talking out loud to yourself, aka external self-talk or private speech, is normal and even beneficial. "Older adults are particularly likely to engage in self-talk," he notes, according to Haupt.

"Maybe it's to help them remember, or maybe it's lowered inhibitions," Brinthaupt says.

Gary Lupyan, a psychology professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who has researched self-talk, points out that "language is good at sequencing things. It helps people stay on task and know when to switch."

Writes Haupt, "Gabrielle Morse, a therapist in New York, often encourages her clients to talk out loud to themselves. In addition to helping people better regulate their emotions, she finds it promotes mindfulness by increasing self-awareness. It also tends to slow down her clients' thoughts, just like journaling would."

As Morse explains it, "We have thousands and thousands of thoughts a day, and they're just neural firings — they're so random. Talking out loud can really help regulate and self-soothe and monitor your stream of thought."

"Shoja, the headphone-wearing self-talker, hopes more people start to reconsider their preconceptions around self-talk," Haupt writes. "'We've made a decision somehow that talking to yourself is kind of cuckoo,' (Shoja) says. But in reality, there's great power in extricating all the thoughts and ideas jumbled up inside you and stringing them together into words and sentences meant for your own ears. 'It allows you to feel seen by yourself,' she says, 'and when that happens, you can allow others to see you.'"

While healthy walking and talking aloud can be virtue, it's important that we not overlook what's going on with our internal voice as a source of negative self-talk. Our self-critical voice can be toxic. As I have written about in the past, I have always viewed life's journey as presenting us with two paths — a positive one and a negative one. On the positive path, you don't wait for things to happen; you make them happen by setting goals and working hard to achieve them, no matter how long it takes.

The challenging part is learning to turn negative thoughts into positive ones. I was 36 when I decided to transition from being a martial arts teacher to being an actor. To some people, I was a has-been before I started. Had I accepted their judgments, I would never have made that first film. And based on my reviews, I would never have made another. But I knew that with enough time, determination and hard work — along with a faith in God and a positive mental attitude — I would succeed.

So it does my heart good when I see young adults today who have learned a similar lesson. I was reminded of this when a came across a column written for the Daily Texan, a publication of the University of Texas at Austin, titled "The Power of Positive Self-Talk."

"Your mindset can be your greatest ally or your worst adversary. It's up to you to decide," writes student Maximo Mendoza. "It's all in your mind and inner voice. Stop tearing yourself down when things don't go your way and start molding your self-talk and mindset to your advantage — let it fuel your confidence and help you reach your full potential."

Amen, my friend.