Walking Meditation

Why You Should Try It

Much of our time is spent rushing from place to place, so preoccupied with our next activity that we don’t really notice what we’re doing now. We risk not really experiencing our life as we live it.

Practicing mindfulness can help. Mindfulness helps us tune into what we’re sensing and experiencing in the present moment—it’s the ability to pay more careful attention to our thoughts, feelings, and bodily sensations, without judging them as good or bad. Research suggests that it can not only reduce stress but also increase our experience of positive emotions.

One of the basic methods for cultivating mindfulness is a “walking meditation,” which involves focusing closely on the physical experience of walking, paying attention to the specific components of each step. With practice, an everyday action that you do automatically, even mindlessly, can become an opportunity for greater focus and awareness—a habit you can try to bring to other mundane activities as well. Some experts recommend alternating the walking meditation with other forms of meditation to keep your practice varied and determine which form feels best for you.

Why It Works

Walking meditation can help increase awareness both of our internal sensations and our external surroundings, tuning us into experiences that we often miss when we rush on autopilot from place to place. Paying closer attention to the process of walking can also increase our sense of appreciation and enjoyment of our physical bodies. By heightening awareness of mental and physical states, walking meditation—like mindfulness in general—can help us gain a greater sense of control over our thoughts, feelings, and actions, allowing us to respond in more constructive ways when we experience negative thoughts or emotions.

Evidence That It Works

Teut, M., Roesner, E. J., Ortiz, M., Reese, F., Binting, S., Roll, S., Fischer, H. F., Michalsen, A., Willich, S. N., & Brinkhaus, B. (2013). Mindful walking in psychologically distressed individuals: A randomized controlled trial. Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine, 2013, 7.

Across four weeks, German adults with moderate to severe psychological distress attended eight 60-minute group sessions of mindful walking training, which each included at least 10 minutes of Walking Meditation. Compared to a group who did not participate, they experienced significant reductions in psychological stress symptoms and improvements in quality of life.

Who Has Tried the Practice?

Participants in the above study were over 90% female and had an average age of about 50 years old. Additional research has engaged members of various groups outside Germany:

• Brazilian undergraduate students who engaged in Walking Meditation for 200 meters experienced heightened positive emotion and enhanced emotional response compared to those who walked normally, as measured by their brain activity.
• Adults in the Netherlands who participated in a guided one-, three-, six-, or 10-day mindful walking retreat increased in mindfulness and positive emotions compared to those who did not attend.
• Elderly Thai adults with depression who practiced 20-30 minutes of Walking Meditation two to three times a week for 12 weeks improved in depressive symptoms and cardiovascular health compared to those who spent the same amount of time walking normally.
• American older adults who attended eight 30-minute Walking Meditation sessions reported lower levels of negative emotion afterward compared to before beginning the program.

Walking Meditation (also known as mindful walking) is one of the mindfulness practices included in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR). Developed by Jon Kabat-Zinn and based on Buddhist teachings, MBSR is a six- to 10-week program that teaches various mindfulness techniques through weekly sessions and homework assignments. Research suggests that MBSR benefits the mental health of various groups, including the following:

• People in different cultures and countries, such as bilingual Latin-American families, university students in China, disadvantaged families in Hong Kong, low-income cyclo drivers in Vietnam, males with generalized anxiety disorder in Iran, Indigenous people in the Republic of Congo, and Aboriginal Australians.
• Women around the world, including pregnant women in China, rural women in India who experienced still-birth, at-risk women in Iran, Muslim women college students in the United Arab Emirates, American survivors of intimate partner violence, and socioeconomically disadvantaged Black women with post-traumatic stress disorder.
• People with certain diseases, such as New Zealanders with rheumatoid arthritis, male patients with heart disease in India, patients with diabetes in South Korea, cancer patients in Canada, breast cancer survivors in China, and HIV-positive individuals in Toronto, San Francisco, Iran, and South Africa.

More research is needed to explore whether, and how, the impact of this practice extends to other groups and cultures.

Keep in Mind

A 2015 study found that MBSR “improved depressive symptoms regardless of affiliation with a religion, sense of spiritually, … sex, or age.” However, other studies suggest that MBSR may not benefit everyone equally:

• When MBSR was administered in Massachusetts correctional facilities, male prisoners experienced less mental health improvement than female prisoners.
• MBSR may not be beneficial in all cultural contexts. For Haitian mental health practitioners and teachers, MBSR contradicted some of their cultural worldviews and everyday practices. Brazilian medical students who participated in MBSR experienced no significant changes in mental health or quality of life.

Sources

Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ph.D., Center for Mindfulness at the University of Massachusetts Medical School

References

By focusing your attention on the sensations of walking, the Walking Meditation can help you cultivate a calmer mind. Are you attuned to the present moment? Take our Mindfulness quiz to find out: