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On the link between great thinking and obsessive walking

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Re: On the link between great thinking and obsessive walking

#211

Post by romwell »

stepbeek wrote: post #113
emadabdulrahim wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My first job out of college was in an office with a cubicle space floor. After a few weeks, I'd often pace around in a small space outside the main entrance when I'm thinking about a problem at work. People would ask if I'm ok. After ~3 months, I couldn't do any work in that office, so I quit. I don't know if I have ADHD or not, but whenever I'm stuck at a coding problem or any sort of a creative problem (I do produc…

Hope you've found a company that values output rather than presence. I run a small company but given the last 18 months have had to come to grips with the idea that I might have to return to normal employment. Losing my freedom to go for a walk - or go to the gym to work through a problem - is a huge fear of mine. I'm utterly convinced that long walks in the woods is my secret sauce and that without it I'll degrade a…

I switched jobs after COVID hit, and I realized just how much of the presumed benefits of office culture didn't really exist.

On paper, my previous employer only valued impact, and employees were able to choose their own schedule.

But work from home was explicitly discouraged in very clear terms, and I have been pressured to increase the overlap in office time with my team "for my benefit". That coming from people responsible for my performance evaluation and making hiring decisions felt a lot like "...or else".

It is also for my benefit, I guess, that I got a seat between my manager and my team lead during an office move (open-floor layout). I didn't mind, because they are both excellent people, but it feels a bit weird in retrospect.

We are all remote until 2022 at the very least; I don't expect mandatory office presence 40 hr/week ever coming back.

At some point, the CEOs will have to come to terms with office space being a sunk cost; and either downside, or provide more space for people who do come into the office.

Having in-person discussions with many people at once is still a killer app for physical offices; latency issues inherently make videoconferencing clumsy. But two days a week should suffice for that, at best.

Re: On the link between great thinking and obsessive walking

#212

Post by romwell »

stepbeek wrote: post #115
romwell wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I worked in an open floor layout, I used to set my working hours to 2PM-10PM, while most of my coworkers were on 9AM-5PM or so. This gave me an overlap of 3 hours to exchange information with my colleagues, and 5 hours to actually work when the office emptied out. If you are wondering whether you have ADHD or not, I made a website where symptoms are described from a first-person POV[1]. It's 200+ memes/comics I…

> No need to play it on hard mode. I love this sentiment. Thanks for this - I'm definitely going to use it going forward.

Thanks!

That the thinking I had when I started taking medication.

Do I need the meds? Irrelevant, and I already got through several decades of my life without them.

Do they make life easier? Absolutely.

Do I have a reason to keep making my life harder? Nope.

Another thought: all the resources and energy (including mental efforts) that are solvable by other, easily implementable means (from medication to changing the way you do things that works for you) — all that time and energy is stolen from your loved ones and people you care about.

Is the time spent doing Boring Difficult Task more valuable to you than time with your friends and family? Perhaps not. Then why choose to maximize the Boring Difficult time?

Fidget, walk, exercise, drink water, take breaks, take Monday off, hire a maid, order takeout, get therapy, get the right meds — it's your life, and you want to spend the most of it on things that matter.

And the time you spend trying hard to do things that are difficult for you is time and energy you can recover by taking the pain out of the process of doing them.

Re: On the link between great thinking and obsessive walking

#213

Post by godshatter »

vivferrari wrote: post #128

I was recently reading a book called Why we Swim where the author traces how the ape got back into the water. I think she rightly points out that Swimming is the best place to think because there is no way to be distracted by your phone or anything else for that matter. While I am also in a landlocked city with little access to pools but it would be interesting to get the point of view of swimmers.

When I was younger I swam a little over a mile a day, five or sometimes six days a week. While there weren't that many distractions, I didn't find it as easy to daydream. I usually got bored. I would count the full laps, and because I was bored I would be thinking things like "12 more laps and I'm over 50%" or whatever, but I never had the free-roaming thinking that I associate with walking. Maybe because I only had so much time before I had to turn around yet again.

I don't recommend swimming that much a week, btw, because I eventually started losing stamina and had to stop completely because I got to where I couldn't do even a quarter mile. That was where I learned the power of resting.

Re: On the link between great thinking and obsessive walking

#214

Post by sweuder »

rramadass wrote: post #150
papito wrote: post #45

This was mentioned before, but the explanation is very simple - walking gets your brain flushed with blood, making you think clearer. That's all there is to it. To take it further, recent studies suggest that exercise more strenuous than just walking makes you better at dealing with uncomfortable decisions and situations (as exercise forces you to power through discomfort). https://www.thecut.com/2016/06/how-exercise…

Good point. I think we need to be careful in recognizing that strenuous exercise does not enable us to make better considered decisions. It is gentle rhythmic exercise (eg. Walking, Tai-chi etc.) which does not tire out the body that is so important for brain health and better decision making.

> I think we need to be careful in recognizing that strenuous exercise does not enable us to make better considered decisions.

What? Is there any evidence to support this statement?

I know I (personally, anecdotally) am a way calmer, more rational and reasonable decision maker after bouts of intense exercise. - Heavy lifting sessions, hard sports training, etc.

Re: On the link between great thinking and obsessive walking

#215

Post by gatlin »

notanzaiiswear wrote: post #203
gatlin wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really, I think we should sincerely and earnestly question what problem the police are presumed to solve. The most useful functions they serve in my area are to help direct traffic during construction, for which they absolutely do not need weapons. Otherwise the idea is that we will be safer if a handful of armed people drive around at their whim staring at pedestrians. They can't go back in time, nor do their method…

I suppose most of it is about drug and gang crimes. Drugs are of course debatable. Here in Berlin we have parks taken over by drug dealers and people don't feel safe. What is the solution? I don't know. Berlin's government responded by giving the drug dealers designated areas for drug dealing. I rather suspect they rely on those dealers for their personal supplies.

Whatever it is, it demonstrably isn't targeted harassment of the people already in the throes of addiction, poverty, etc. Drugs result in violence because they are illegal, not the other way around. Portugal is oft cited but for good reason.

Re: On the link between great thinking and obsessive walking

#216

Post by rramadass »

sweuder wrote: post #214
rramadass wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good point. I think we need to be careful in recognizing that strenuous exercise does not enable us to make better considered decisions. It is gentle rhythmic exercise (eg. Walking, Tai-chi etc.) which does not tire out the body that is so important for brain health and better decision making.

> I think we need to be careful in recognizing that strenuous exercise does not enable us to make better considered decisions. What? Is there any evidence to support this statement? I know I (personally, anecdotally) am a way calmer, more rational and reasonable decision maker after bouts of intense exercise. - Heavy lifting sessions, hard sports training, etc.

Note that i used the phrase "better considered decisions" which is not the same as making a "quick decision". Decision making is improved during Walking while you need some variable time after Strenuous Exercise when your Arousal state has calmed down to make better decisions.

The Inverted U Hypothesis (aka Yerkes-Dodson law - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yerkes%E2%80%93Dodson_law) and https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/inverted-u.htm was the first to posit the relationship between Arousal and Performance. However there are lots of nuances to this. The important one is Cue Utilization Theory (https://www.elitetrack.com/blogs-details-7362/ and https://psychology.iresearchnet.com/sports-psychology/percep...) which is relevant for decision making.

Coming to Exercise Intensity and Decision Making you may find the following papers helpful for some empirical data.

* Influence of exercise intensity on the decision-making performance of experienced and inexperienced soccer players - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19454768/ and Fontana's thesis at https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/12206332.pdf

* Effect of Exercise Intensity Level on Choice Reaction Time - https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.2466/11.03.CP.4.3

PS: I have linked to two relevant books in another post of mine in this thread which you may find useful.

Re: On the link between great thinking and obsessive walking

#217

Post by wheelinsupial »

pr_nik2 wrote: post #136

For a long time, the scholarly consensus was that you are born with a fixed number of neurons and then start losing them over your lifetime. Now there is good evidence of adult neurogenesis and it seems to be linked to endurance exercise, such as walking. These links can be a starting point for reading up on it: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4425252/ https://www.npr.org/2011/02/04/133498136/growing-a-b…

Perhaps I’m misreading the first link you’ve provided, but doesn’t it say the benefit is only for women?

Re: On the link between great thinking and obsessive walking

#218

Post by keerthiko »

js2 wrote: post #95
keerthiko wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This statement is a bit broad and thus debatable in overall accuracy, but it is based on something real. It is probably overly centered on the western and white-centric world, since being white or not doesn't even come into question in many other parts of the world. But in the US/Europe... Women have been, for valid reasons and patriarchal overprotectiveness, been trained to feel vulnerable and exposed when walking o…

> Women have been, for valid reasons and patriarchal overprotectiveness, been trained to feel vulnerable and exposed when walking outside. Been trained? “10 Hours of Walking in NYC as a Woman”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1XGPvbWn0A

Yep, looks like "getting trained by valid reasons" to me.

Re: On the link between great thinking and obsessive walking

#219

Post by rpmisms »

goodpoint wrote: post #186
rpmisms wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hunting vs. Gathering is what springs to mind. Also a theory as to why women have better color perception than men.

This is wild speculation based to the myths around "hunter/gatherer" society.

I didn't present it as fact.

Re: On the link between great thinking and obsessive walking

#220

Post by marttt »

tomcooks wrote: post #207
marttt wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you experience mental breakdowns of any kind while you were walking?

None whatsoever aside from the usual post-adventure depression. I've met several persons lost on pilgrimage routes due to mental breakdowns. It's a know problem, people find happiness and an alternative life during a pilgrimage and keep on walking the routes back and forth through Europe until they run out of money and then become homeless. At the beginning of the French route towards Santiago de Compostela you might…

> It's a know problem, people find happiness and an alternative life during a pilgrimage and keep on walking the routes back and forth through Europe until they run out of money and then become homeless.

Really interesting, thanks for sharing this. I've never been on a pilgrimage, but the mental side does seem to have similarities with a 10-day Vipassana meditation retreat then. Occasionally, (beginning) meditators may experience something similar: struggling to re-enter the "real world" when the camp is over. That's why the last few days of a retreat are structured in a manner that prepares people for a "soft landing" in daily life.

Most interesting to hear, though, that this phenomenon can be so serious in case of pilgrimages.

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