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Why Walking Helps Us Think (2014)

www.newyorker.com Essays & writing Essays & articles Medicine & health Candidate

Resurfaced independently across 4 calendar years, with breakout response in 2 of them.

submissions
4
submitters
4
observed span
2014–2017
peak thread · 117 comments
407 pts
latest 20+ return · 2017-05-01
407 pts

Submission timeline

2007–2026

One slot for every year since HN launched. Height is that year's peak points; orange marks a 100+ point or 50+ comment breakout. Select a bar to open its strongest thread.

First comments on top threads

HN comment order

"our brain must survey the surrounding environment, construct a mental map of the world, settle on a way forward" A colleague in my phd program went on the job market this year with research that is related to this, especially to the connection between writing and walking discussed in the final paragraph. In a nutshell, his theory and experimental evidence suggest that we use the same cognitive mechanisms to process real maps as we do abstract maps. In particular, he…

This is an unusually verbose article even for the New Yorker. The TL;DR appears to be simply "increased heart rate," with no real citations to prove it. And it just sounds a bit absurd. Increased heart rates don't have a reliable correlation with creative thought. You can increase your heart rate by watching a scary movie or pornography, but nobody that I know of reports those being prime thinking times. Moreover, you can raise your heart rate even more by…

drostie·211-point thread·

The first top-level comment from each of the four biggest threads, in HN’s own order. Excerpts are shortened; open a comment for full context.

Breakout years
2

100+ points or 50+ comments

Total points
626

reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking

Total comments
167

reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking

Every submission

DateTitle as submittedByPointsComments
2014-09-04Why Walking Helps Us ThinkFirst breakoutchippy21150
2015-08-07Why Walking Helps Us Thinkcarlosgg50
2016-09-05Why Walking Helps Us Thinkprostoalex30
2017-05-01Why Walking Helps Us Think (2014)Best thread · Latest 20+ point returnbootload407117