Episode 21: Walking Is Medicine. No, Literally.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

If someone told you there was an intervention that reduced anxiety, improved sleep, lowered cortisol, supported bone density, boosted brain function, helped manage weight, reduced inflammation, and improved your mood, and it was free, n required no equipment, had no side effects, and you could start today, you would probably want to know what it was. It's walking. Just walking, putting one foot in front of the other. Ideally, outside, for about 20 to 30 minutes, and that's the intervention. It's that simple. And I know it sounds too simple to be meaningful, but the research really does say otherwise, and the research is overwhelming. This might be the most boring sounding episode I've ever recorded. It's also arguably the most important. So grab a seat. Let's have a chat. Walking. Because in a world obsessed with optimization and intensity and getting the most out of every minute, we've somehow overlooked the fact that the simplest, oldest form of human movement is also one of the most powerful things a menopausal woman can do for her body and her mind. So what does walking actually do? Let me lay out the evidence because it's almost absurdly comprehensive on this. So firstly, cortisol. Walking, particularly outdoors, consistently lowers cortisol levels. One study found that a 20-minute walk in a natural environment reduced cortisol significantly more than the same walk in an urban setting. But even urban walking lowers cortisol compared to sitting. If your cortisol is running high, and in menopause it probably is, walking is one of the most direct ways to bring it down, without spiking at first, which is what the high-intensity exercise can do, which is why lots of women find that they're increasing their workouts, they're doing more, but actually they're still not losing any weight and they still feel like shit because their cortisol is still high because the exercise is actually increasing the cortisol. Number two is sleep. Regular walking, particularly in the morning in natural light, improves sleep quality. The combination of daylight exposure, gentle physical exertion, and cortisol within regulation creates the conditions for better sleep. Fact. It's not just falling asleep faster, the quality of your sleep, the depth of it, and the restorative value of it. So walking in the morning sets up your entire circadian system for the day. Number three is anxiety and mood. I've already touched on this, but walking is consistently shown to reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression. The mechanism are multiple. It lowers cortisol, increases endorphins, it promotes blood flow to the brain, and the rhythmic bilateral movement, left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot, has a regulatory effect on the nervous system that's similar to the bilateral stimulation used in EMDR therapy. Your body literally calms itself through the rhythm of walking. That's not anecdotal, it's neuroscience. The next one is brain function. Blood flow to the brain increases during walking. Cognitive function improves for hours afterwards. Memory, focus, creativity, problem solving, they're all measurably better after a walk than after sitting. And if you've got brain fog and you're not walking regularly, you're missing one of the simplest, most direct ways you could possibly improve it. The next one is bone density. And walking is a weight-bearing exercise. I know I keep going on about lifting heavy, but your skeleton is carrying your body weight with every step, and that mechanical stimulus supports bone remodelling. And it's not as effective as resistance training for bone density, sure, we covered that in episode 8, but it all contributes and it all helps. And for a woman who's not yet ready for the gym, a daily walk is protecting her bones while she builds up to lifting. All the other benefits aside, this is probably one of the most important. Next up is inflammation. Regular moderate exercise, including walking, reduces systemic inflammation. The anti-inflammatory effect is well documented and particularly relevant in menopause when inflammation is already massively elevated. And finally, body composition. Walking burns calories, obviously, but more importantly, for menopausal women, it does so without spiking cortisol, like I mentioned before. Unlike high intensity cardiac, which can raise cortisol and potentially contribute to the visceral fat cycle we talked about in episode six. Walking burns energy gently. And it's exercise that doesn't stress your already stressed body, and sometimes a gentle is exactly what we need. So if it's so good, and I'm making out here like it's a panacea, it's not, but it is pretty damn good. Why do we dismiss it? The thing is, lots of people think, oh, it's just walking, and this is why most women don't walk enough. It doesn't feel like enough. We've been conditioned to believe that exercise only counts if it hurts, if you sweat, if it leaves you breathless, if it earns you some kind of suffering badge. And by that measure, walking is not exercise, not even close. It's just walking. That mental conditioning that we are all listening to on a daily basis, the fact that we need to be optimised, the fact that we should be doing 75 hard, the fact that we need to sweat, the fact that we need to pour our heart and souls into it, the fact that we need to be consistent every single day, that conditioning's wrong. And in menopause, it's actively harmful because the woman who skips the walk because it's not intense enough and goes for a run instead might be getting a less beneficial outcome as backwards as that sounds. The run will spike her cortisol, the walk will lower it, the run will leave her wired, the walk will leave her more regulated, the run might contribute to the stress cycle her body's already trapped in, the walk interrupts it. I'm not anti-running by any stretch of the imagination. I mean I am anti-me running because I hate it, but I'm not anti-running as a method of exercise. And if you love running and if it works for your body, then keep running. But if you're a woman who's been told that exercise needs to be intense to be valuable, and you've been avoiding walking because it seems too easy, I'm here to tell you that easy is the point in this case. Easy is what your nervous system needs sometimes, and easy is what your cortisol response definitely needs, and easy is medicine. And here's something that took me a while to accept. Walking counts. I used to finish a walk and think, well that was nice, but it wasn't really exercise. I'd log a five-mile walk and feel faintly embarrassed I hadn't done something more impressive. Or I'd say to somebody, Oh, I haven't worked out for ages, I just do walking. It's as if my body was keeping like a league table of activities, and walking was at the very very bottom. My body does not keep a league table of activities. Your body does not care about your ego. It cares about what serves it, and walking serves it beautifully. The women I know who are aging best, the ones who are strong, clear-headed, well slept, emotionally stable, they walk every day. Not all of them lift weights, although they should. Not all of them eat perfectly. Again, they should, but let's face it, we're not all perfect. But they all walk consistently, daily, in all weathers. And I live in Monaco, so there's a lot of um steps in Monaco, and you can walk pretty much everywhere in about 15 minutes. And everybody here walks because it's a fat to take the car. We all walk consistently daily, and the women here are almost without exception doing better than the women who are running themselves into the ground at 5 a.m. wondering why they feel terrible. So we've got the theory behind it, we understand walking, yes, it's good it's a good thing to do. Um but how do you actually do it? I don't mean how do you actually put one foot in front of the other, but how do you make it happen in real life? So let me be practical for a second, because that's the gap between walking is good for you, intellectually understanding the principle, and actually walking regularly. And that gap is filled with a logistical reality. The first is you need to anchor it in something you already do. The most reliable way to build a walking habit is to attach it to an existing routine. So a walk after your morning coffee, a walk after dropping the children to school, a walk at lunch, a walk after dinner, attach it to a trigger that already exists in your day, and the decision fatigue will disappear. You don't have to decide for a walk, you just walk because it's what happens after coffee. The second is twenty minutes is enough. You don't need an hour. You don't need to hit a step count. Twenty minutes of continuous walking at a pace that's brisk enough that you could talk but would rather not sing. It's enough to trigger the quarterzile sleep, mood and cognitive benefits. Twenty minutes, that's it. That's one podcast episode. Third, outside is significantly better than inside. The combination of daylight, fresh air, natural scenery, and a temperature of variation adds benefits that a treadmill just cannot replicate. If you can walk outside, do. If you can't, weather safety logistics, a treadmill's still better than sitting, but outside is the gold standard, and quite frankly, if it's raining, put a coat on. A friend of mine that's a sailor says there's no bad weather, just badly, badly prepared clothing, and I can't stand by that having lived in the UK for so many years. Fourth, you don't need special clothing. Haha, I say retrospectively, you don't need special shoes, you don't need a fitness tracker, you don't need an app, you need the shoes you're already wearing, and a door. The barrier to entry is so low for this, it's as low as it's possible to be, which means the only obstacle is the decision to start. And the decision to start takes less energy than making a cup of tea, so really you can get this one done, I promise you. Fifth, go alone. Walking with friends is wonderful, it's lovely. We talked about that in episode 14, but walking alone has its own specific value. It's time with your own thoughts, it's processing time, it's the space where your brain sorts through the day without you forcing it to. Some of my some of my best thinking happens on solo walks. Not because I'm trying to think, because I'm generally thinking I'm kind of brain dead and just staring into space, but because I'm walking, the thinking happens by itself. There is research on this actually, and walking increases creative thinking by about 60% compared to sitting. 60%. If you've got a problem you can't solve, a decision you can't make, an idea you can't quite find, walk. Don't sit at your desk and think harder, walk. Get out there, move. The movement unlocks something in your brain that stillness just can't access. And for women and menopause who are struggling with brain fog and reduced cognitive flexibility, and I'm very familiar with that one, that unlock is particularly valuable. And I want to leave you with one image. Think of walking as a reset button for your entire system. Not a hard reset, a gentle one. It's like restarting a computer that's been running too many programs. Twenty minutes of walking closes some of the tabs, it frees up some processing power, it lets the system run more smoothly. You're not doing nothing when you walk. You are doing maintenance on the most important system you will ever own. So your one thing this week. I wonder if you can guess what it is. Walk for 20 minutes tomorrow or today. Outside if you can, morning if possible. No phone, no podcast, no music, just you and the movement. It's perfectly acceptable. Then notice how you feel afterwards, not during, sometimes the first few minutes can feel like a bit of a chore. But afterwards, notice your mood, notice your clarity, notice your energy, and then ask yourself whether 20 minutes was worth it. It was, but I want you to feel it, not just hear me say it. This episode, it's got no dramatic revelation, there's no neuroscience twist, there's no controversial position on this one. Just walk more. Walk regularly, walk outside, and your menopausal body will thank you in ways that are measurable, significant, and free. And I think there's something beautiful in that simplicity. In a world that wants to sell you complexity, programs, supplements, devices, protocols. The most powerful intervention is the one that costs nothing and has existed since humans first stood upright. Next week we're talking about your joints, adjacent topic, but your joints. Why everything creaks, aches, and stiffens in menopause, and what you can do about it beyond just accepting that you now make noises when you stand up. It's a quick practical one with some genuinely useful advice. If this episode on walking made you want to go outside, go right now. 20 minutes, leave the phone, walk, bugger off. So for now, that's me signing off with love from Monaco.