When I run I sometimes experience something lovely with my thinking. I liken it to shaking up a snow globe and feeling my thoughts criss-cross and settle wherever they please.

When I finish I feel calmer but I’ve often also made some reflections or connections that hadn’t occurred to me before, which I quickly scribble down before I loose them.

In many ways, this process needs no explanation. It just is, and I enjoy it when it happens.

There are several likely psychological explanations for this related to having dedicated time alone with thoughts, but recently I have read In Praise of Walking by Shane O’Mara who presents more psych0physiological explanation, and I was compelled to share:

Think of the brain as an enormously complicated network of cells, regions and circuits, each with varying degrees of traffic depending on the task at hand, and the regions involved in that task. Regions close together will naturally interact more.

Consider the analogy of the extended network of people in your life: you meet lots of folk who know similar things to you, and every now and then you’ll meet someone from a different place to you (literally or spiritually for example) – an “expert” in something you don’t know so much about – you’re likely to learn more from those “experts” you interact with less.

Your brain is similar when it comes to creating novel and creative ideas… we need access to far flung remote regions in different brain areas.

These connections are quite literally made by getting more of the brain active – get up and walk about – or in my case run – and you increase brain activity. This activity spreads accross brain regions, and so perhaps (my favourite bit of all)…

“Half thoughts and quarter ideas sitting below consciousness can come together in new combinations when more brain regions are lit up”

Just blooming fascinating and beautiful, no?