The many ways we choose to deal with stress falls on a spectrum. At one extreme, we can ignore it completely in hopes that it goes away on its own. And at the other extreme, we can dive head-first into finding the solution as fast as possible. They both have their pros and cons.
Ignoring new stressors allows us to continue focusing on what’s important right now. But doing that comes with a dark cloud that follows us around.
Tackling new stressors head on can help us get past them sooner. But can leave us neglecting of other important responsibilities and needs.
It’s a safe bet that most of us have been in one of those two camps at some point over past couple of years – especially with how COVID-19 has affected our lives.
There has been a lot of attention brought to how it affects our bodies if we were to catch it. Rightfully so, in many cases. But not enough attention has been given to the impact on our mental and physical health.
We were already so focused on our kids, our elderly parents, our businesses, our relationships, our finances, and more. Now we must worry about how they are being upended by this craziness. And that can come as a cost to our well-being.
Many of us have ignored our declining mental or physical health because it’s too hard to do anything about it. Because we’re too focused on dealing with all the other shit. Because we don’t know what to do.
OR…
We’ve gone to the other extreme. Thoughts of home-workouts and dieting cloud our minds at the expense of our other responsibilities.
But that doesn’t mean that we’re screwed. We can still do something about it.
The Biggest Bang For Your Buck
I present to you an extremely simple, zero-cost, quick and easy way to improve your health without sacrificing anything else that’s important to you. If you could only do ONE THING to improve the quality of your life, this is it…
Drumroll please!
Are you ready for life-changing advice?
Here it comes…
Go for a 20min walk. Every day.
That’s it.
Sorry for the lack of fireworks or fanfare.
It’s not sexy advice. It doesn’t attract a million followers on IG or TikTok. It’s not something you haven’t heard already. But…
Is it an activity you’ve tried, and given the opportunity it deserves? 🤔
Walking provides many immediate benefits, but it’s often disregarded because of our craving for flashy exercises and workouts.
Here’s a quick list of them:
- Improves sleep hygiene.
- Improves creativity
- Improves mental clarity
- Improves cardiovascular endurance
- Lowers mental stress
- Lowers chance of heart disease
- Lowers the amount of time you spend with coworkers that you don’t like
I mean…Who wants to listen to Barbara in finance talk about how great her dog is, even though we both know that your dog is “the goodest boy in the whole wide world”.
Getting away from Barbara’s nonsense should be incentive enough to get outside for 20min.
But Wait, There's more.
When I announced that life-changing advice a minute ago, you probably thought, “No shit, Rob. Tell me something I don’t know.” Then you did a facepalm for how embarrassed you were for me. (Thank you for caring, btw.)
But here’s the secret ingredient to this advice…
Your walk must be outside. No treadmills.
Yes, walking on a treadmill is better than not going for a walk at all. But unless you have an impairment or phobia, you’ll receive more benefit from being outside.
Why outside? Because there are unique benefits that are impossible to get indoors.
The most obvious benefit to being outside is the access to fresh air. The risk for COVID outdoors is so infinitesimally small that there is no need to wear a mask. You can experience the freshness of each breath.
Here are two other benefits to being outside that you may not have known about, and they both involve your eyes… 👀
No Threats, No Stress
Around the summer of 2020, I came across an interview with Dr. Andrew Huberman, a Professor of Neurobiology and Ophthalmology. In it, he shared some research he found that linked a reduction in stress with our panoramic vision, aka. our peripheral vision.
To paraphrase what he shared: The action of focusing our eyes on a specific target increases our mental arousal/alertness for the better or worse. On the other hand, if we can look around without focusing on anything specific for too long, we provide assurance to our brains that there is no danger in front of us.
This triggers a response in our nervous system to chill-out, and relax bro.
Day and Night
Something else I have learned is that our circadian rhythm (the internal process that regulates our wake/sleep cycle) is regulated by how much light our eyes collect. If we can get enough light into our eyes during the first 12-14hrs of our wake cycle, we reduce the risk of delaying our sleep cycle. Ideally, we get this light early in the day, and begin to eliminate it towards the end of the day.
Consider this…The intensity of light created by a candle within a cubic meter of space is measured as one “Lux”.
- The light in a typical living room is 100-300 lux.
- In your office at work or at the gym; 500-700 lux.
- Outside on an overcast day; 1,000-2,000 lux.
- Ambient daylight; 10,000-15,000 lux.
- A very bright summer day; up to 100,000 lux.
By sitting in our living rooms, we experience just a small percentage of the light we would get from being outside for the same amount of time.
You can test this for yourself by downloading a “Lux Meter” app to your phone.
Even the difference between standing in front of an open window and a closed window will surprise you. 🤯
It’s important to consider this because by capturing enough light during the day, our circadian rhythm does not get disrupted.
Now To Do That One Thing.
The pandemic forced a lot of people out of their routines. Regardless of whether those routines included exercise or not, most of us were shook and our well-being plummeted.
I’ve been championing for walking outside for some time because I have personally experienced the benefits. This one almost effortless daily activity was a crucial element in my ability to pull myself from my own unhappy place.
I’m still reaping the reward with every walk!
After every 20min stroll, my mind is clearer, my motivation is elevated, my creativity is stimulated, my mood is improved.
I know that you can have the same benefits that I did, or more, so I wanted to share some tips to make your daily walks easier to implement.
- Dress for the weather.
- Self-explanatory, but highly underrated advice.
- Keep your head up, and your eyes level.
- Scanning, enjoying the scenery. Not fixating on the ground, or a specific point/object.
- Reassure to your nervous system that there are no threats, and that it’s OK to relax.
- Perform some double duty.
- Listen to a podcast.
- Walk the dog.
- Bring the family.
- Socialize with a friend.
- Experiment with time of day.
- Create a specific schedule. Eg. Every morning at 8am, or after lunch.
- Follow a specific routine. Eg. Before I do creative work, or after specific stressful occasions.
- Limit the use of sunglasses – to an extent.
- Stay comfortable in the experience and keep it enjoyable.
- Light entering the eye with sunglasses will still be much higher than being indoors.
- Have a plan for “what’s next”, or don’t.
- Use the walk to talk yourself through a task you need to work on when you return.
- If you find yourself revved up and motivated upon return, tap into that momentum and tackle something you’ve been putting off.
As you can see, going for a walk outside doesn’t have to be a boring, pointless waste of time. In fact, you’ll probably find yourself far more productive and in a better mood in general.
If you’re already on team “Daily Walks Outside”, what are some other tips you could share that would help us recruit new teammates and change some lives?
I’d love to read some.
