If you are finding it hard to fit exercise into your busy life, maybe you are overcomplicating things and engaging in all-or-none thinking.  

In this episode of the Self-Care Series, we are talking about the benefits of movement, specifically walking. Our guest is Carolyn Cohen, host of the Wellness While Walking podcast and functional medicine health coach.  

For Carolyn, walking is not just a way of moving from one point to another; it is an intimate part of the human experience, a bridge that connects us to our past and opens up paths to our futures. 

The slogan “Sitting is the New Smoking” exists because most of us are considered sedentary, and the benefits of walking to our bodies, minds, and brains are almost too numerous to count.  

Mentioned in this episode:

• Blue Zones: https://www.bluezones.com/
• The woman who lost 120 pounds just by walking around her 1-bedroom apartment: https://bit.ly/4a4lDa5

Connect with Carolyn:

Podcast: Wellness While Walking

IG: https://www.instagram.com/wellnesswhilewalking/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carolyncohen/

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Don’t even think you can fit walking into your busy life because your business is sucking up all of your time and energy?  Have you considered working with a business coach who is also a licensed psychotherapist and has ADHD, just like you?  

I am opening up opportunities to work with me for different lengths of time, based on your needs, goals, and what’s got you feeling stuck. 

It starts with a no-obligation free consultation. I help you figure out why your business is not yet where you want it to be, and create a plan that takes mental wellness and energetic capacity into account.  I call it “right-sizing” and it might be exactly what you need right now if you know you’re doing too much, but don’t know what to let go of.

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H: Carolyn, we both have an approach to wellness that is more what I call as a Buddhist, the middle way. It's not extreme to one end or the other because you are a certified functional medicine health coach, you're qualified to talk about a lot of different things when it comes to health and well-being. Why is walking your thing?

G: Oh, thanks so much for that question, Diann. I love to talk about it in this way. Walking is my thing because of what it is in actuality and also what it says as a metaphor. So first of all, in actuality, I have felt like walking has been underrated for, you know, most of the time I've been alive. Now that's not always been the case because people like Nietzsche and, you know, Hippocrates, every people Mark Twain, like, everyone talked about the benefits of walking, but I think to some degree, for the past several decades, they have been, sort of forgotten about. And so walking is really how we became separate from the animal kingdom in terms of our evolution. So it's really a part of who we are, our ability to stand on 2 legs and to move and see the horizon and carry things at the same time helped to make us human.

And so it really is unlike many other activities that we think of that we might substitute out for walking, it really is part of who we are. And in reality Diann in practical terms, it's also fairly easy to partake in. And then on top of that all, there are so many benefits to walking. But I do think that for a long time, they were not really celebrated. And so I love that walking is starting to come into its own because it can offer us so many different benefits. There are physiological benefits, so many of them. We can reduce all cause mortality, you know, extend our lives through walking.

We can, you know, kind of skyrocket our creativity. We can, connect with nature and feel a sense of awe, which helps us fight feelings of depression. There are just so many proven benefits of walking. But one of the things I saw, when I was starting to coach people was that things like walking would be sort of seen as a stepping stone to something else. That walking was seen as, you know, not just so wonderful in its own right, but that somehow we had to go from maybe a saunter a dog walk with a dog who likes to sniff everything. And then we should kinda move on to power walking, and then we might wanna do a little bit of, like, intermittent jogging you know? And then we might wanna become a runner like, everything was always being ratcheted up.

And I don't know like, we I studied the Peter principle when I was studying business and that, you know, kinda says, like, it's kind of the idea that you get promoted until you're actually no good at your job. And I've kind of found, like, an analogous thing when I was trying to coach people, which is like they would do these things, they would like them, but then something inside of them or something that society kind of foisted on them had them ratcheting things up. And then it caught to a it would get to a point where they would stop, and they wouldn't go back to that thing that they started with that they liked. They just literally would stop and so my love of walking and now that it's kind of come into its own, both through research, but also, you know, through a lot of people practicing it during the pandemic when they hadn't been.

I just love that it's getting realized for how helpful it can be, and then the you know, part 2 is kind of as a metaphor, and so again, I feel like that's true in other areas of health where we're trying to improve our health and have our health span match our lifespan. And, you know, do we always have to go for the huge high impact thing that we may or may not continue doing? Because making some changes often isn't as hard even though we think it is as sustaining them.

And to be effective, the thing has to be done, you know, over and over again. So I have found walking to be just a really beautiful place to start with people. A lot of people who come to me wanna start, you know, let's say with wait. And I if that's, you know, if they're set up to do that and they're really ready, that's great. But oftentimes, there are these more kind of foundational things that can really help us, make better choices on a day to day basis, which is, kind of what leading a healthy lifestyle is about.

H: There's so, so much juicy goodness in this that I wanna unpack. You're right, I totally agree and I'll even give you my own personal background. I was a runner, and I ran like a 10k every weekend. I had all the t shirts, no trophies, by the way. I wasn't like a great runner, I just ran a lot. And I had this idea that if I ever slowed down to a walk, that that didn't count. And this idea, Carolyn, of it not counting kind of pervasive through the exercise industry because as you said, we're always ratcheting up. And I think it's not just an exercise we're already always ratcheting up in the business world. I talk a lot on this podcast about all the language and messaging around grow and scale, grow and scale, grow and scale. Why isn’t anybody freaking talking about sustainability because anybody can do anything.

Well, not anybody because anybody can do anything. Well, not anybody, many people can do something for a short period of time, and then it's like they check it off their list, and they move on. I don't think most of us are really thinking over the long term and sustainable practices that sustain our mental and physical well-being. I also totally agree with you about walking as being seen, like either the bastard stepchild of exercise or like the gateway drug to serial exercise. And yet, you know, we are here in the United States, it is we are actually releasing this episode the day before National Walking Day. So clearly, other people besides the two of us are figuring out that this is a good thing to celebrate, but we are in an aging population.

Like, I think the number of people over 40, over 50, over 60, like, we've got a lot of people who should not be doing really strenuous forms of exercise. I was all for it. I was going to the gym 6 days a week. I had to stop running because of a car accident, injury to my neck. But that didn't stop me from going to CrossFit and doing all these exercises until literally one day I could not get up off the toilet. Go to the doctor, go to the hospital, get the x rays and the MRIs, you know what I've done to myself through all that heavy lifting because I kept ratcheting up. I have literally blown out my meniscus in both my knees.

Totally totally self induced. Why, because our culture just keeps telling us ratchet up, ratchet up, ratchet up. On the other side of that equation, we've got a lot of people in burnout. We've got a lot of people talking about and clapping back on toxic productivity. And I think the time has finally arrived for walking to take its rightful place. I mean, it is what our ancient ancestors did like, don't we know that or believe that they walked, like, miles a day to seek shelter and food?

G: Exactly.

H: And now we're sitting. We’re, sitting, sitting, sitting, like, sitting, sit. Have you seen the, message around sitting is the new smoking?

G: Oh, yeah and just so you know, like, I my belief is not that standing is the antidote to that. We actually have to move you know, standing is just being kind of stationary, but in another plane, I'm not saying it's not slightly better, it is. We're more likely to fidget a little bit and move around slightly, but the answer isn't necessarily just standing. It's really moving our bodies, and it does not have to be strenuous.

I love this one company, took all the individual waste paper baskets out of offices and put like, you had to go down the hall to kind of the, you know, the kitchen copier room, whatever, to throw your trash away, and that's just one way of getting people up and walking. And I, you know, I love anything that we can latch onto that, you know, helps us do that.

H: It's kind of perverse in a way though, Carolyn, because on the one hand, we're all sort of culturally conditioned to believe that we have to do hard things, and they have to be intense, and we have to keep ratcheting them up. And yet we are the percentage of, people who are clinically obese is at an all time high. The number of people who are sedentary is at an all time high. It's like, clearly, there's a disconnect between what we think we're supposed to be doing and what we're actually doing. Like, do we have to have public service announcements about walking so that people can actually recognize the benefits? Like, what are the actual benefits according to science? Let's go there.

G: Oh my gosh. Well, first of all, there are they're so hard to count, and you might see them in headlines if you start to pay attention because there'll be headlines, you know, in kind of a regular, you know, layperson's kind of, magazine online newspaper or whatever. You know, walking can help reduce your blood pressure, let's say and so those kinds of studies are often, you know, great. Sometimes they don't quite apply to us, like, if you look in the studies done among men, or it's done among some other group that we aren't part of.

Also, with any study, there's a bell curve so what works for the you know, most people in order to be something that then people proclaim is a good thing. There are always people who are outliers, right, on both sides of the bell curve, so that's another just kinda caveat. But what the media tends to do is sort of, extrapolate and not necessarily with nuance. Oftentimes, headlines don't match the story so if you go in and you read the story, there's, like, it kinda contradicts it, but the headline, you know, kind of drew you in, with maybe, not a not a lie, but maybe just a, you know, kind of…

H: Clickbait.

G: Yeah, totally. But, you know, maybe a little bit of a misrepresentation of the entire findings and so on. So it's just this kinda crazy world, but I will tell you this that it does help, reduce all cause mortality, and it doesn't have to be 10,000 steps. That's a whole other thing, we are coming from the business world. I was a marketer. I worked in, you know, a fortune 5 100, consumer packaged goods company. I would have been so happy if my product had taken off, thanks to, you know, kind of a just a marketing tagline, which is what the 10,000 steps were. So in in Japan, a couple of decades ago, they were marketing a pedometer, kind of one of those low tech ones, and they called it 10,000 steps, and it just took hold and people started considering 10,000 steps as the gold standard.

H: But are you for real? It's not a, Oh my god, it’s not even scientific.

G: No, it did not come around from that.

H: I'm devastated. I'm gonna tell my friend Kevin who swears by this. He literally thinks he's got the key to longevity because he faithfully does his 10,000 steps a day. Kevin, if you're listening, I'm so sorry. So, it was just because that was the name of a product?

G: Yes, and that's all good like, actually, you know, taking more and more steps generally can help us, but we don't have to. And that's the thing that, you know, I think gets lost in all these news articles and headlines. So for example, like, the average person just doing the stuff of life walks about it's between 2,000, 2,700. I've seen different calculations for it, but somewhere in the 2,000, that's what average person does so there are people who are doing less, right, to make that the average. So every time we add another 1,000 steps or 2,000 steps to that, we can see huge benefits in terms of health metrics, whether that's, likelihood to have high blood pressure, likelihood to have a stroke.

I do think that's kind of the biggest impediment to making lasting lifestyle changes that can give us those, you know, beautiful years that we want and to live them healthfully. I do think all or nothing thinking is so prevalent, and it's definitely the first thing I work on with a client. And it's kinda like you said, like the you know, if you track, if you think of yourself as a failure because you don't get some to a certain place, if you don't charge your smartwatch and so you do less because it's not gonna count, it's kinda like coupons. Like, when I was working in marketing, like, you know, retailers would often have coupons, and then if you left your coupon at home, you often wouldn't buy anything right? Like, it's kind of that same dynamic going on where I think sometimes we're trying to like, close our rings or check off the box or keep our streak going, and often at a high level.

And so if we don't attain it, then we feel terrible about ourselves, and then we're at risk of not doing the thing at all. And so I just love celebrating what we can do and oftentimes, it's not really difficult. I mean, there's I interviewed somebody who helped formulate the, exercise guidelines for Europe, and her research is so interesting to me. She's not ready to say that if you were going to walk 30 minutes total in a day, that you should absolutely split that up into 3 10 minute increments and do them after you eat. But she's getting pretty close, and so I love that because if we can't fit in, you know, we're busy, we're commuting, we are juggling so many obligations.

If we can't fit in a dedicated walk, that's not you know, that doesn't mean that we can't achieve our goals of being active. And walking 10 minutes after each meal has been shown to balance our blood sugar and what happens when we balance our blood sugar? Well, a myriad of things within our bodies in terms of, like, keeping us as, you know, a little further away from getting metabolic syndrome, which is something that's very pervasive and causes a lot of, disease or contributes to its acceleration. And so it balancing our blood sugar also can help us think better and make better decisions. And when you think about it, like, a healthy lifestyle is full of decisions you know? They're not huge decisions, like do I buy a car or what car to buy or am I ready to marry this person? But they're those little decisions that kinda make or break our day.

H: So what I'm hearing is that and it's so interesting because I absolutely agree with you, Carolyn. This all or nothing thinking is really pervasive. And I would even go so far as to say it kind of gets hooked right in with the pervasive belief that most of us have that we're not enough, which kind of goes into, I'm not doing enough. I'm not earning enough. I'm not contributing enough. I'm not, it's like, if you just start with this belief, which I think, has definitely affected every woman I've ever met, and maybe some of the men seems to be proportionately fewer of them.

Does that mean you literally slide all the way down the hill back to worthlessness? It reminds me I used to play as a child therapist, Chutes and Ladders with a lot of the younger kids who came to see me. And, man, I think so many adults are really, like, kids playing that game because we love the ladder where we get to go up for no reason. And then the chute, it's like you slide all the way back down to the bottom of the game. You're like, oh, no, I'm not gonna do that, it doesn't count. Who freaking says it doesn't count? Everything counts. I almost feel like I need to get a forearm tattoo that says everything counts, bitch. Yes, it does with walking too.

G: It's so true. I mean, there and just like you said, generally, like, I think there's always the opportunity to do more and we can look at other people and obviously not know anything about, you know, the other 100 realms of their lives, but we see this one thing and so the whole comparison pitfall is huge. But I think it is a lot of it is mindset, and I do think that the superpower of people who are able to make changes, small changes, small changes have huge power. It but it does require that we do them fairly consistently. It doesn't mean necessarily every day. But I do believe that the superpower of people who are able to stick to something that has an impact on their life, the quality of their life, their health, is flexibility.

H: You know I have ADHD, most of my clients do as well. And I'm just thinking about all the conversations I've had with clients about movement and getting more movement into their life and all the things that they tell me along with the, well, if I don't have time to do it the right way, I might as well not do it, or I can do it. Usually, 2 weeks is kind of the upper limit of how long they tell me they can sustain any new habit. They do it for about 2 weeks and then either something happens where they get pulled away from it, and then they don't find their way back or something happens that literally disrupts the routine so that it's it feels like a fail.

Like, the whole thing was a fail because it came to an end, and then they don't wanna do it again. Or they tell me from the jump, I've never been able to be consistent at anything. So why would I want to add this as one more failure? And I think I totally understand that nobody wants to set themselves up to fail. But is do you think there's a way to be more consistent with walking through flexibility?

She also was, I think, like, 87 years old when I read about her. And she had lost a 120 pounds by walking in her 1 bedroom apartment, and not necessarily just that, obviously. She changed her diet significantly. But there, you know, there is a way to move our bodies that doesn't involve going to the gym and doesn't involve huge amounts of planning or even necessarily sweating and having to shower, which is, you know, hard to fit into a workday sometimes. So I think walking is the perfect way of moving and also just an activity, to bring into your life to, you know, be able to honor that flexibility that many of us have and so I do think it's kind of a perfect fit.

H: Let's talk about some data because there are people that are like, okay, okay, I'm with you. I'm still listening. I'm willing to be convinced that everything counts and that I don't have to do this perfectly. I don't have to do this perfectly consistently. I can do this. I don't need to get a gym membership, I don’t have to buy gym equipment, I am capable of doing this. But like, what are the parameters? Because I know a lot of people with ADHD need systems and structure and accountability, and we'll get to that in a minute. Or they just, you know, I used to say I'm the queen of good intentions and shitty follow through.

So I need systems and structure to eliminate and also ritual and routine because if I get into a regular routine, I can just bypass the should I or shouldn't I? Or the question I do not want to ask myself is, do I feel like it? Girl, don't go there. So, like, are there are there, like, minimums or I mean, we've established that it's good for you to move your body, and it's good for you to walk. So every time you walk, it's good. But if you want to get some of the other health benefits, and I do want to talk about mental health benefits next because we've talked a lot about the physical health benefits. But if we really wanna overcome our doubts, overcome our negative conditioning, overcome our all or none thinking, and really give this an honest try, especially in honor of National Walking Day for crying out loud just do it for that. Are there, like, minimum frequency or minimum length of time to start really tapping into those benefits?

G: I mean, I think it really, really depends on the person. I mean, it's such a good case of knowing yourself and even, you know, the scenario you were painting earlier. Like, some people thrive with bright lines and really, like, holding themselves, you know, accountable to some very specific, you know, something that we would many of us would see as rigid. There you know, that's the beauty of people and how to make changes that everyone's different. And like I said, even the studies don't necessarily apply to all of us. So, I like to start where you are, but it just takes a little intention right? It takes a little consideration like, what is important to you? What is my what does my life look like and certainly that changes over time in terms of when we have time.

I mean, a lot of people ask me, is it better to work to walk in the morning versus other times of the day? You know, it's kind of that same answer of, like, kinda it depends, like, if you're if really when will you do it and then can you add a little bit in other times of the day? Because as you were saying, like, you know, the whole trend towards being sedentary, which, you know, I'm sitting right now, I'm gonna get a little, you know, like, little thing from my ring that I wear primarily to monitor my sleep that, like, you know, shouldn't you be stretching your legs? I was like, yes, I should, but it's gonna have to wait. So I think the trend towards being more sedentary, is something that, you know, we have to sort of a little more consciously fight against. I do know some people who will intentionally drink water so that they intentionally have to get up like a half an hour later that's one strategy for certain people.

H: Who told you? I confess, I got the whole 40 ounce Stanley Cup situation going on here because

G: You're so funny.

H: Tell you what, I'm not kidding, Carolyn, between, just getting into the zone and then ADHD hyperfocus going well beyond the zone where you literally can't tear yourself away. The only thing that worked for me is the drinking large quantities of water because then I have a biological imperative to get up and do something about that otherwise I would set the timers. I would set the reminders. I would have all these things buzzing on my wrist and I ignore them all. I'm coming. I'm coming. It's like, no, no. No, you're not but the bladder will only wait so long and that's a

G: Yes. I love that. So in terms I just think for each individual, it's something to consider right? Like, I do think there are benefits to walking in the morning or being outside in the morning, getting sunlight on your eyes. In fact, I heard your recent episode about sleep, and Morgan established that as well. So, you know, just, trying to play into versus fight our circadian rhythms will help us tremendously. But I think that it really is a little bit of a homework assignment for people to think about, you know, what's next for them if they're already active, you know, in a spurt, let's say.

Now let's say somebody's committed to going to the gym every day at 4 PM. You know, what else can you add in during the rest of the day that might make you a little more active? And I like how you said movement because I think movement is really what we're after versus exercise. You know, I have a couple of, bones to pick about the blue zones, but one thing I think it shows really well, you know, it's a study of several areas around the world where they purportedly have longer lived peoples than other places. And one of the things that comes across so well in the National Geographic pages and in the, you know, Netflix documentaries is kind of just like nobody's exercising right?

Like, they're moving, and they're moving as part of their lives. And if we can think back to the fact that we really haven't evolved that much, we were, many of us, most of us, hunter gatherers, we moved. We did, sometimes we ran, in search of prey, but then after that, we stopped running but we were walking a lot. And if you think about the blue zones where some of those traditions, not necessarily hunter gatherers, but what where some of the traditional, you know, ways of life, you know, persist, they're not going to barre class. You know, they're not signing up for, like, something …

H: No Planet Fitness.

G: Yeah, like, right at 10 PM, you know, they're moving. And that is really, you know, to me, that's where the biggest step from being sedentary to anything is. I mean, the benefits from becoming moderately mobile versus sedentary, they're huge. Huge so, I would say it's worth thinking about, you know, giving yourself an assignment to think about where you are now and where you could possibly add something in if it's necessary. And there have been people that have thanked me for, you know, something they've read that I've written or heard on a show or a comment that I've left on a Facebook group where they're like, oh my god thank you for not making 10,000 steps a requirement.

Because when I was walking 10,000 steps, I wasn't actually cooking at home. I was then going through the takeout line and you know, for my entire family. And so if I can just do fewer steps, I actually have time to cook at home. Okay, well, you know, that's where, like, closer rings doesn't really account for what's going on in your entire life, and we are entire people with whole lives, and it's all a matter of trade off. So I would say it really depends on where the person is and what their goals are. I think if people embrace a goal of simply moving more, however they get there, whether it be by drinking a bunch of water. By the way, being, you know, not hydrated sufficiently also is terrible for our cognition and our decision making.

H: Oh my goodness.

G: Yeah. Just being a little dehydrated, we lose point like, several points of cognitive ability. So like right there, that's like a win win right? Like you have this little thing set up which helps you immensely, and the danger of it is not appreciating it. Because if we don't appreciate it, it's likely to fall by the wayside. You know, your straw breaks and you don't replace it or whatever. You're like, that didn't matter anyway. That was a silly little thing I did for a while. No, it's an incredibly impactful thing, but to keep it going, you have to appreciate that it is.

H: This is so good. In fact, I've been smiling the whole time you're talking because well, first of all, I bought my Stanley cup on the TikTok shop because they were doing all these promos, and, of course, it was an impulse purchase. But I'm using it, but what I'm thinking is that, you know, you're right. I keep trying to get you to be rigid and performative and formulaic, and you just aren't going for it.

G: So, so sorry.

H: No, you're not sorry. Because being flex I mean, we're so used to expecting someone to tell us what to do. I've said this before, I'm gonna probably keep on saying it, but it's like the way we're socially conditioned to seek permission. Like life is one big game of mother, may I? Like, the answer to almost every question begins with it depends and nobody likes that. Because they're like, quit holding out on me. Just tell me how many steps do I have to walk? How long do I have to walk? You should do it in the morning or the afternoon or the evening. Is it okay if I walk at my dog's pace? Or do I have to, like, pick it up? You're like, it depends right. Because you have a whole life to be considered.

Now one of the things I think that people are wondering is, what are the mental health benefits? Because the physical benefits, I think we've established. But I think the last few years have been really hard for our individual and collective mental health. A lot of people are feeling burned out. A lot of people are seeking mental health treatment if they can afford it and if it's even available to them. What do we know from research and also your own experience with clients about the mental health benefits of moving through walking, even if you're doing it imperfectly or inconsistently?

G: I love that you asked it that way. So first of all, with, those of us who do have ADHD tendencies, I would say there's this incredible urge to multitask oftentimes, and walking is the perfect thing to do while you're doing something else. It is so rare for us to be able to actually multitask and keep our, you know, focus on 2 things at the same time. The thing about walking is that it's so, you know, such a part of who we are that we often don't have to pay too much attention to it. So walking can satisfy a lot of things at the same time, which is like bonanza right? Like, in our lives, there are just so few things where we can actually layer something else on top of another thing and find success with that. But one of the my, like, favorite things to layer on top of walking is to walk out in nature.

And walking first of all, in the way that we move our body, helps quiet inflammation, and inflammation has so many negative effects, both in the short and long term. So being able to take advantage of that really helps. It can exacerbate things like anxiety and depression. So being able to reduce inflammation, you know, even from a mental health point of view, I know we know about it from, like, our joints or whatever, but, actually within our brain inflammation is not our friend. And so being able to use movement to reduce that is great, but then if you pair it with being outdoors, and not everyone can do this all the time, and some of us have, you know, beautiful places right outside our doorstep, but others of us can find beauty even in something that you wouldn't think of as beautiful.

I'm living in an urban part of my town right now, and I walk under highway overpasses almost on every single walk, and yet I can still find things that I find are striking, like whether it be my shadow, against the underpass wall or kind of the way that cars in a certain you know, sometimes a certain cadence can sound like the ocean or to see a flower poke through the sidewalk. So finding little bits of nature or even not you know, even just fully in in the ability of humankind to make something, or just focusing on our bodies and how the I mean, incredibly intricate ways that we manage to still live and put one foot in front of each other is just, like, kind of unfathomable right? So, like, looking, in nature or being outdoors to kind of find that sense of awe, which also makes us feel part of something bigger connects us.

And then if you can layer in this third thing, which is like multitasking on steroids, maybe it can also be social. And it's becoming more and more common to take a walking meeting, let's say, or to call somebody while you're walking, or to invite somebody. You know, being socially connected is a huge part of health and well-being, and one lovely way to connect with somebody that maybe you haven't you know, you want to invest more in this relationship, but, like, asking somebody to take a walk is one of the best ways. Just like if you have teenagers when you're both walking, side by side, shoulder to shoulder or driving, you know, that kinda same dynamic with a teenager where they, like, suddenly will open up to you because you're not looking face to face.

Sometimes that first step with a friend, first step being a walking pun. But sometimes that first step, you know, building a new relationship or kind of nurturing a relationship can be kind of an on ramp to feeling more socially connected. And then there are these micro moments that we can have by walking around oftentimes. Sometimes when you're out and you see fellow walkers, you know, you'll you can notice, like, you catch each other's eye, or what if you just said, like, I love that sweater as you're passing by them. These things add up to making us feel connected and they have incredible, mental well-being benefits. So walking is just sort of like the base, and then you can keep adding little things on that make it ever more powerful and it really is like a wonderful place to start.

G: You are so lucky.

H: You wanna get even more jealous, I also have a treadmill desk, so I can walk while I'm doing certain kinds of work. Because I'm not very good at sitting still, and it does tend to either put me into hyperfocus or just brain freeze but I am sold. You have actually I already have a wonderful walking practice and am completely sold on the benefits, but I've learned more about something I already love doing through this conversation. And I suspect that there are others listening who are thinking, okay. Alright, I get it, I'm gonna do it and how can they find out more about you, learn more from you, be part of your world? What would be the, here comes the pun, what's the first step to that?

G: I know, it's becomes part of this. Like, you know, you say things like pivot or turn around. Like, there's so many things that lend themselves to walking, which I think is so great. And it really is about valuing those what we might you know, society might deem smaller steps, but, wow, they are powerful, and they're really gratifying. I mean, I've never heard of somebody going out for a walk and then feeling less good afterwards right? It's just I've never heard of it, not one time. So, in terms of finding out more about me, I would be honored if somebody turned to their podcast app and put in walking, and you would find Wellness While Walking there.

I have approximately 30 to 40 minute episodes come out each week. There's actually a beep played halfway through to remind those who are walking out and back to turn around. But we talk about much more than walking. We talk about health and wellness kind of in the same vein that we've been talking about today where we just find doable ways to improve our health. Unfortunately, the way society is set up, with everything from hustle culture to, you know, being sedentary to having the less healthy foods be cheaper and more available.

Things are not set up for us to be healthy, and it doesn't have to be difficult or onerous or painful or, you know, joyless, but we sometimes need to be intentional in order just turn things around a little bit and, and find our way back to the path that you know, to being and having these lovely lives you know? So, listening to the show would be great if you can't find out on a podcast app, it's also at wellnesswhilewalking.com.

H: And I will make sure that we link to both Carolyn's podcast and her website and socials in the show notes. So take this as an invitation to take your next walk with her on the podcast.