Might not be helpful, but I wonder if going on daily morning walks before school with him could be illuminating. It’s amazing how much better the brain makes connections when the legs are moving.
I’m concerned about the mental impact of a sedentary society.
I've heard that the human animal evolved to walk/run 12 miles per day, and that some people suspect that our sedentary lives are at the root of all sorts of mental and cognitive issues.
I've got a treadmill under my work desk. I notice that when I'm walking I can focus on meetings and actually process auditory information way better. Makes me wonder how I would've done in school if walking was an option.
I did a 5 day wilderness backpacking trip this summer and it's a godsend for disconnecting and mental health though I guess what Sivers is talking about is a slightly different format. I'll have to think about this some for when I'm older.
I see him walking while working as a way to keep his physical self exercising alongside his mind, not because he can’t handle being alone with his thoughts. He even mentions that if there’s a stressful meeting, he can walk off some of the stress.
He also works remotely, and it’s important to take the opportunities to move around while remote. It’s easy to stay in the house all day, especially in a snowy winter, but getting some movement in is important for many people to have a happy and healthy life.
Not the parent, but some simply prefer walking as an activity, and aren't concerned about optimizing how much distance is squeezed into a unit of time. A long, slow walk provides plenty of meaningful benefits that running and jogging may not.
Additionally, for people who experience joint issues, I'm sure the risks aren't at all overstated.
Another possibility: walking is a means of seeding your brain's RNG with new entropy. That would explain why some sedentary activities (like driving to work or fiddling with a toy) can help you think too.
Other studies show that outdoor walking relieves stress(1) and provides an opportunity to think about problems differently (or perhaps "creatively")(2), in those 40 minutes a day would be more than sufficient to experience advantages.
However how those 40 minutes take place would affect the result. Merely counting 40 minutes of doing chores is not the same as an extra 40 minutes added deliberately to a person's day. Similarly 40 minutes on a treadmill is unlikely to feel as relaxing as a walk through nature. Drawing detailed conclusions from activity studies is problematic, but the broad conclusions are consistent: the body likes movement and lots of it.
Just get a treadmill. Not as pleasant as walking in nature, among trees, or by a lake.
But beats walking in a crowded city or having to cross roads anyday.
I live in a place where it is too hot, and only time people can go on walks is dawn/pre-morning. As a night owl, I cannot do that. So I bought a treadmill.
It has been great for me and has served me really well.
The cognitive benefits mentioned in the article and what many of us know, you can derive that from treadmill walking. I can attest to that.
Depends on where you live, but for a great many, absolutely yes. If you're not oriented to walking, you may think no, but over a mile of distance is very straightforward. This is all personal bias, from fifth grade on I walked 1.5 miles each way. Was about 35-40 minutes each way until legs got longer and then down to 20 minutes each way. Perfect warmup time for school and decompression to get home.
If parents let their children think that walking that much is akin to abuse, beyond reasonable expectations, well, that's a very modern look that their grandparents would just not understand. It's like having cars and a safer world means they don't need to use their bodies more as part of day-to-day life, just reserve them for sports.
I’m concerned about the mental impact of a sedentary society.
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