Suzanne's Mom's Blog

A New York Times blog called “Well” recently had a post on the value of a walk at lunch.

Gretchen Reynolds wrote, “A new study finds that even gentle lunchtime strolls can perceptibly — and immediately — buoy people’s moods and ability to handle stress at work.

“It is not news, of course, that walking is healthy and that people who walk or otherwise exercise regularly tend to be more calm, alert and happy than people who are inactive. But many past studies of the effects of walking and other exercise on mood have focused on somewhat long-term, gradual outcomes, looking at how weeks or months of exercise change people emotionally.”

For a new study “published in the Scandinavian Journal of Medicine and Science in Sports … researchers at the University of Birmingham and other universities began by recruiting sedentary office workers at the university.

“A common problem with studies of the effect of exercise on mood, [researcher Cecilie] Thogersen-Ntoumani said, is that they rely on recall. People are asked to remember hours or days after the fact how exercise made them feel.” So participants were given a special app to record how they felt in the moment.

“On the afternoons after a lunchtime stroll, walkers said they felt considerably more enthusiastic, less tense, and generally more relaxed and able to cope than on afternoons when they hadn’t walked and even compared with their own moods from a morning before a walk.” More here.

Makes perfect sense to me. But until we get rid of some of our ice, my own lunchtime walks are indoors in South Station — under the disconcerting fish eye of the suspicious security guard.

Photo: Getty Images
I love the cobblestones here. But where I am at lunchtime may not get down to cobblestones for many, many weeks.