Walking, fresh air, and some random tech stuff

Temp is 27 but it feels like 18. We’re talking Fahrenheit here. Cold and windy – and the first cold of the season. Just went for a brisk walk, realizing quickly I was underdressed. It was a super intense walk—I had to move quickly.

Jack Jalanne said to walk like really you mean it. Throw your arms up there–make it full body. If you do that it’s a totally different experience. It’s a total body workout and it’s incredibly invigorating. With the cold temp, I really got aggressive and went fast. In the fresh, clean, cold air, this kind of thing is super-vitalizing.

Ran across an article today from one of the co-founders of Facebook.

I definitely believe we have become slaves to our devices. I try to frequently remind myself of an Amish quote, “We don’t consider the tool we use until we consider what kind of people we become when we use the tool.” Standing there, holding that screen and just swipe, swipe, swiping. It’s almost like you can see the brain cells dying.

These apps are made with the intent of getting you to spend more time in the app. This stuff just prevents deep thinking and causes us to shorten our attention spans. Honestly, watching humanity and cell phones interact reminds me of the movie Idiocracy. So, I really enjoyed that article. Tech is way too dominant – a blessing and a curse in a way. We definitely need to be capable of controlling our usage and be aware of the effect the app has on us.

Back to this walking topic. Bernarr McFadden. Interesting dude – millionaire self-made made man in the early 1900’s in America. A publisher. A physical culturalist. Supposedly buried money underground and had an affinity for carrots. He had some great stuff—importance of fresh air (he would gasp at the thought of breathing in all that recycled air in your bedroom each night, and if you think about it, it is kind of gross), exercise, diet, and walking.

He wrote about it all as it related to health. For some “how to walk” advice inspired by Bernarr and three other sources of information, take a look at How to walk. It’s kind of like the how and why to walk. Walking is powerful. I often tell people if you do nothing at all, just make sure you walk. So important.