If science is sure about anything, it’s that walking and nature are good for you. One recent study showed walking just 15 minutes a day can add years to your life, while a prominent neuroscientist called walking “a superpower.” Meanwhile, study after study after study shows time in nature reduces stress, boosts happiness and self-control, and makes you more creative.
Now imagine what happens if you put these two activities together?
In everyday language we call this hiking, and according to a new book by neuroscientist Daniel Levitin, strapping on your boots and hitting the trails not only offers all the benefits of exercise and the great outdoors combined, it also helps keep your brain young.
Take a hike. Your brain will thank you.
To promote his book, Successful Aging, Levitin did the usual round of media appearances (this one from PBS in which he argues against retirement was great, for example). Among all these interviews was a conversation with Jill Suttie of UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center in which he mentions the outsized benefits of taking a hike.
Levitin kicks off his discussion of exercise and the aging brain with the usual refrain of scientists — keeping active in any way is good. If your elliptical trainer…
