Thinking on Sunday: In Praise of Walking: The New Science of how we Walk

Walking upright on two feet is a uniquely human skill. It defines us as a species and it’s this overlooked ability that could make unbelievable changes to us as individuals and to society.

Walking enabled us to walk out of Africa and to spread as far as Alaska and Australia. It freed our hands and freed our minds. We put one foot in front of the other without thinking - yet how many of us know how we do that, or appreciate the advantages it gives us?

In this tribute to walking, neuroscientist Shane O’Mara invites us to marvel at the benefits it confers on our bodies and minds and to start a walking revolution.

In Praise of Walking celebrates this miraculous ability. Incredibly, it is a skill that has its evolutionary origins millions of years ago, under the sea. And the latest research is only now revealing how the brain and nervous system performs the mechanical magic of balancing, navigating a crowded city, or running our inner GPS system.
Walking is good for our muscles and posture, it helps to protect and repair organs, slow or turn back the ageing of our brains. Walking together to achieve a shared pur-pose is also a social glue that has contributed to our survival as a species.

As our lives become increasingly sedentary with a focus on office jobs and computers, cars for travel and gyms for generic exercise, we risk all this. We must start walking again, whether it’s up a mountain, down to the park, or simply to school and work. We, and our societies, will be better for it.

Copies of In Praise of Walking: The new science of how we walk and why it’s good for us will be available to buy on the day.

Shane O’Mara is Professor of Experimental Brain Research at Trinity College Dublin, the University of Dublin. He is Principal Investigator in, and was Director of, the Trini-ty College Institute of Neuroscience, one of Europe’s leading research centres for neu-roscience. He is also a Wellcome Trust Senior Investigator and a Science Foundation Ireland Principal