SAUNTER:

O'Mara, a professor of experimental brain research at Trinity College in Dublin, writes in straightforward prose, methodically presenting research and studies in support of his thesis that walking has not only been crucial to human evolution but is essential to our health. Studies show that regular walking mobilizes changes in the structure of our brain that can increase volume in the areas associated with learning and memory. He dedicates a chapter to the science behind human navigation and describes how the selective memories of our wanderings are central components of our experiences and ability to make "maps of the world we have experienced."

O'Mara argues that walking influences many aspects of cognition -- how we think, reason, remember, read, and write. In particular, there is a vital relationship between movement of the body and the flow of thinking. "Since antiquity it has been recognized that a good walk is an excellent way to think problems through," he writes.

The neural reasons for this relationship are only now being revealed through research that shows we have two main modes of thought: active mode and mind-wandering. It's the latter that walking can stimulate, allowing our minds to drift and "integrate our past, present, and future, interrogate our social lives, and create a largescale personal narrative."

Studies show that regular walking mobilizes changes in the structure of our brain that can increase volume in the areas associated with learning and memory.

Walking seems capable of shaking us out of old ruminations and opening up the possibility of new potential and patterns of thought. It sets our thoughts free, as O'Mara puts it. The ability to let our thoughts flow while sauntering through a landscape has been long appreciated by poets like Wordsworth. But it's only now that the scientific understanding of cognition in the wild -- meaning outside of the laboratory -- is catching up.

One of the pleasures of reading "In Praise of Walking" is that you may begin to recount the significant foot journeys of your past. I found myself recalling with renewed poignancy a roughly 55-mile walk from Port-au-Prince to Jacmel in Haiti that I only now recognize as a pivotal moment in my personal and professional life, or the regular strolls I have taken since I was a child across the cliffs of Howth in Ireland with multiple generations of my family. "Walking is holistic," writes O'Mara. "Every aspect of it aids every aspect of one's being."

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