Because we don’t have to devote much conscious effort to the act of walking, our attention is free to wander—to overlay the world before us with a parade of images from the mind’s theatre. This is precisely the kind of mental state that studies have linked to innovative ideas and strokes of insight.
About the time I hit my goal of losing 10 pounds, our friend Lou Rosenfeld posted on Facebook in March that he’d lost weight and trimmed his waistline. I found the timing interesting — it’s tempting to scarf heavy casseroles and skip exercise during a bitter winter like we had this year — and I was struck that we’d both taken…
Like the swallows returning to Capistrano, this past week predictably brought huge crowds to my local YMCA. Every cardiovascular machine was full, classes were packed, the hallways bustled. Also predictably, the people who were working out in November and December grumble about the New Year’s resolution throngs. For instance, a friend funnier than I am wrote on Facebook: Dear people…
