The body you think with

In ontological coaching, which shapes how I work, language, emotions and the body are three connected domains. A change in one moves the others. Sitting at a desk under fluorescent light, screen in front, shoulders up, breath shallow, a person tends to reach for the same stories they always reach for. Walking uphill, breathing deeply, with a long view ahead, different ones become available.

Emotion research supports the link. Posture and movement help produce and recognise emotions, as well as express them (Niedenthal, 2007). Slow, deep breathing is linked with calmer physiology and lower anxiety across many studies (Zaccaro et al., 2018). Climbing a trail does both without anyone having to ask.

Walking opens up your thinking

Marily Oppezzo and Daniel Schwartz ran four experiments at Stanford. People generated more creative ideas while walking than while sitting, whether on a treadmill facing a blank wall or outside. Depending on the experiment, between 81% and 100% of participants were more creative walking. The boost carried over for a while after they sat back down. Walking didn’t help with tasks that have one correct answer (Oppezzo & Schwartz, 2014).

That fits what coaching asks of you. You’re rarely looking for one right answer. You’re looking for options you haven’t let yourself see.

Nature quiets the loop in your head

Gregory Bratman and colleagues sent people on a 90-minute walk, either through a natural area or along a busy road. Those who walked in nature reported less rumination afterwards and showed reduced activity in a brain region linked to it, the subgenual prefrontal cortex. The urban walkers showed no such change (Bratman et al., 2015).

Marc Berman, John Jonides and Stephen Kaplan found that a walk in a park improved performance on a demanding attention task more than a walk downtown did (Berman, Jonides & Kaplan, 2008). Their explanation is that natural settings hold your attention gently, which lets the effortful kind recover.

Rumination keeps capable people stuck: the same worries and reasons, around and around. A setting that interrupts the loop gives a new thought room.

How much nature?

Mathew White and colleagues looked at nearly 20,000 people in England. Those who spent at least 120 minutes a week in nature were more likely to report good health and high well-being than those who spent none. The benefits levelled off at around 200 to 300 minutes, and it didn’t matter whether people got their two hours in one visit or several (White et al., 2019).

A view from higher up

There’s one more thing I use that’s harder to measure. When you climb above the place you live and look down at it, you see your life from a literal distance. Your house, your office, your kids’ school, your daily route, all small at once.

Research on awe suggests why this matters. In studies led by Yang Bai, people who experienced awe, often in nature, felt their sense of self get smaller and felt more connected to the people and world around them (Bai et al., 2017). Clients describe something similar at the top. The problem doesn’t disappear, but it takes up less of the view.

There’s a parallel in how we talk to ourselves. Ethan Kross and colleagues found that people who talked to themselves at a distance, using their own name or “you” instead of “I”, handled stressful tasks with less anxiety (Kross et al., 2014). Looking down at your town from a summit is the physical version of that distance.

You don’t need to go to Tibet to meditate. A trail an hour from home is enough.

What a walking session looks like

With clients in Slovenia, we usually meet at a trailhead, often less than an hour from Ljubljana.

  • At the start, we stand for a minute before walking. Feet on the ground, a slow breath out, and a check: what’s the weather inside today?
  • On the way up, we talk about what’s live: what you moved on since last time, and what both compasses said. Walking side by side makes hard things easier to say. There’s no eye contact to manage.
  • When something important comes up, we stop. Often the body notices first: you slow down, or stop talking. We pay attention to that.
  • At the top, we sit. This is where we choose the story and decide the next move, with the view in front of us.
  • On the way down, it settles. Clients often say the most useful sentence of the session in the last ten minutes.

The full-day intensive in the 6-month coaching runs this way, and so does Forge48, over two days with a small group.

If you’re not in Slovenia

The same principle works remotely. We start on a video call to set the question. You walk alone for 45 minutes, somewhere green if you can, with one question and your phone in your pocket. Then we talk again about what came up. Your feet do part of the work.

When outdoors isn’t right

Some conversations need a closed room, and some days the weather decides. Some bodies need a slower pace, or a flat path. Sessions by video or indoors are always an option, and we choose together.

One thing to try this week

Take your next hard decision on a 30-minute walk, alone, phone in your pocket. Before you leave, write the question down. Walk uphill if you can. When you get back, write the first three things you noticed, in your body and in your thinking, and compare them with what you’d have written at your desk.