'Silent walking' is the new workout trend rooted in mindfulness
Put down the Airpods
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If you're hooked to your playlist or podcast while you walk, it could be time to shake things up. Silent walking is the latest workout-wellness trend, and it's good for your body and your mind.
The appeal for many people, when they go for a walk or run, is to whack on a great playlist or catch up on a podcast.
With lives so busy and time alone so precious, having time to listen to music you love or engage with topics you’re interested in is important – and rooted in self-care.
However, some say it could be time to swap in your hot girl walk for a quieter rendition, as per a new trend known as ‘silent walking’.
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Silent walking, as dubbed by TikTok creator @madymaio, is pretty much exactly what it sounds like: swapping your RnB-backed power walk for time spent in total silence (at least 30 minutes) not as a form of modern-day torture but for your mental health.
After being encouraged to walk for 30 minutes a day by her nutritionist, Maio explains in a video on her TikTok, her boyfriend suggested she try it without any distractions. No Airpods, no podcast, no music, no phone calls, just her thoughts and the sounds of the environment around her.
Her initial response was “F*ck no, my anxiety could never”, but after the initial two minutes of racing thoughts and anxiety, Maio says she got into a “flow state” where everything quietened and calmed down: “Suddenly you can f*cking hear yourself”.
“The universe and your intuition come to you through whispers,” she says. “So if you’re never alone with your thoughts and you never get quiet you’re gonna miss the whispers. Those whispers are the most important to be paying attention to.”
“After 30 minutes of silent walking, I suddenly had the clarity that I’ve always been looking for. Brain fog lifted, suddenly all these ideas are flowing into me because I’m giving them space to enter.”
For people like me, who can’t walk from their bedroom to the bathroom without a soundtrack, the thought of allocating 30 minutes to radio silence when I could be listening to the dulcet sounds of Lana del Ray is a harrowing one. Why would you move through life without a backing track if you can have a perfectly curated one by yours truly?
As a writer, I also can’t listen to certain music during the day as it messes with the flow, so the time I spend in transit – be it walking, running or sitting on a bus – are sacred minutes to enjoy something I love.
But silent walking isn’t about missing out, or actively withholding things that make you happy. Rather, taking the time to sit in silence helps you to appreciate the music more, and also gives time to your thoughts and sense of peace, which is even more important.
Filling your ears with sounds is also a great method of avoidance, as it drowns out thoughts and feelings you may not want around, like heartbreak, anger, sadness or jealousy. But those emotions are crucial to work through for your ongoing happiness and peace, and blocking them out only extends their hold.
The world is busy and loud, particularly when we’re plugged in online. Allocating time and space to separate yourself from that volume is important – not just for your mental health but also for the quality of your thoughts.
In a recent episode of Mindbodygreen’s podcast, happiness expert Gretchen Rubin said she doesn’t recommend listening to music in the shower for the same reason.
“I don't know that I would have a brilliant insight if I walked around listening to a podcast," she said. "As much as I love listening to podcasts, I would have been thinking about whatever the podcast was about."
"You need this open-searching time in order for new ideas to bubble up," she explained. "This is why people get ideas in the shower or in the middle of the night - it's a downtime where then the brain creates its own fun."
"It's when I'm bored that I have big insights because my brain is open and trying to entertain itself.”
Maio echoed these same principles in her video about silent walking, saying “When you’re listening to a podcast or music you’re distracting yourself, you’re not letting the signs and the ideas have space to come to you.
“Every time I finish a silent walk I have a new idea for business, I’ve untangled a weird situation in my head that I’ve been ruminating over, and I feel like a lot of my question marks get answered.”
Beyond productivity – a culture of which is worth deconstructing, too – silent walking is also just a brilliant method of mindfulness and meditation. Listening to the sounds of nature around you, feeling the sun on your face, and the wind in your hair is restorative, as many scientific reports have shown. Giving your mind the space to take it all in makes a world of difference.
Tips for your own silent walk
As the CEO of the silent walking movement, Maio shared a guide for silent walking with her followers.
“It will be super anxiety-inducing in the beginning, but I promise things will settle and start to flow after 5 mins,” she says, and suggests that if 30 minutes may feel like a lot, then it’s perfectly fine to start with five and build up over time.
Here’s what else she recommends:
#1. Get outside – walking on a treadmill is great but kind of boring, especially if you have no music. For a silent walk, Maio says “put on your cute a$$ walking shoes and get outside!”
#2. No distractions – no headphones, no podcast, no music. Just your thoughts and the sounds of the natural environment. Maio also suggests taking off your sunglasses so you can “observe nature as it was intended”, but given we know how harsh the Australian sun is, we’d suggest keeping the sunnies on, and adding a healthy layer of sunscreen too.
#3. Choose your route – to facilitate maximum mindfulness and ignite your intuition, Maio says it’s best to pick a neighbourhood “with homes you can admire” and things that will inspire you. Once again, lean away from distractions and find a place you can really connect with yourself. If that’s a suburban route with quiet streets, great, but if it’s a park or other form of natural landscape, that’s even better.
#4. Let your brain run wild – to foster “brilliant ideas”, untether yourself from the mental boundaries and compartmentalisation we get so good at day-to-day. It helps to put the phone away too, as that is the very best form of distraction, and the more time spent offline the better. “Give yourself space to think,” says Maio.
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