I’m lucky to live less than a mile from the Pacific Ocean and I make it a regular part of my workout routine, visiting Strands Beach in Dana Point or Thousand Steps in Laguna as often as I can. Lately I’ve been ramping up to hike Mt. Whitney so I’ve been tackling the stairs at both beaches a few times per week. It’s a great workout with an incredible view.

The physical part of the workout is just one component. For me the mental clarity it provides is even more important.

We live in interesting times. There’s really no need to pontificate on the stimulus overload we all face these days. When we aren’t on social media we’re listening to nearly every song ever recorded, on-demand, plus an endless supply of podcasts, traditional radio and Audible books. The amount of amazing and cheap audio content available is remarkable.

While I make my typical circuit of ten to fifteen sets of stairs I see many of the same people every day, accompanied by a smile and a nod. Nine out of ten have ear buds in during their workout. I personally make a point to go headphones free, for a couple of reasons. First, I think we have to find time to give our brain a break and re-charge. Second, movement is a tool that fuels creativity and free thought.

So lose the headphones every once and a while.

There’s a Latin phrase, solvitur ambulando, that translates to “it is solved by walking.” Many great thinkers throughout history have used walking as a tool to engage their mind, work out problems, and facilitate mental breakthroughs. The list includes Aristotle, Thoreau, John Muir, Nietzsche and Charles Darwin, just to name a few.

And there’s real science behind it. A 2015 study from Stanford University found that time spent in natural environments (as opposed to busy city settings) calmed activity in a part of the brain that research has linked to mental illness. Hanging out with Mother Nature also seems to reduce your mind’s propensity to “ruminate”—a word psychologists use for negative, self-focused patterns of thought that are linked with anxiety and depression. “I’d say there’s mounting evidence that, for urbanites and suburbanites, nature experience increases positive mood and decreases negative mood,” says Greg Bratman, a Stanford research fellow and coauthor of that study.

By some accounts Nietzsche used to walk up to eight hours per day, making the statement that “all truly great thoughts are conceived by walking.”

From Curtis Cate’s Biography on Nietzsche:

With a Spartan rigour which never ceased to amaze his landlord-grocer, Nietzsche would get up every morning when the faintly dawning sky was still grey, and, after washing himself with cold water from the pitcher and china basin in his bedroom and drinking some warm milk, he would, when not felled by headaches and vomiting, work uninterruptedly until eleven in the morning. He then went for a brisk, two-hour walk through the nearby forest or along the edge of Lake Silvaplana (to the north-east) or of Lake Sils (to the south-west), stopping every now and then to jot down his latest thoughts in the notebook he always carried with him. Returning for a late luncheon at the Hôtel Alpenrose, Nietzsche, who detested promiscuity, avoided the midday crush of the table d’hôte in the large dining-room and ate a more or less ‘private’ lunch, usually consisting of a beefsteak and an ‘unbelievable’ quantity of fruit, which was, the hotel manager was persuaded, the chief cause of his frequent stomach upsets. After luncheon, usually dressed in a long and somewhat threadbare brown jacket, and armed as usual with notebook, pencil, and a large grey-green parasol to shade his eyes, he would stride off again on an even longer walk, which sometimes took him up the Fextal as far as its majestic glacier. Returning ‘home’ between four and five o’clock, he would immediately get back to work, sustaining himself on biscuits, peasant bread, honey (sent from Naumburg), fruit and pots of tea he brewed for himself in the little upstairs ‘dining-room’ next to his bedroom, until, worn out, he snuffed out the candle and went to bed around 11 p.m.

These great thinkers used nature to open up their minds. What they didn’t have was a smart phone in their pocket distracting them. Finding solitude is critical. I especially find this rewarding when I’m walking along the ocean. I’ve found that listening to the waves crash and the other sounds of the sea really helps me think through the complex scenarios that life puts in front of us. It’s become so effective that to focus and get in a deep work state while I’m in the office, I’ll play rain falling or ocean waves and other nature recordings on the Calm app.

This isn’t a rant against technology. The iPhone is truly a remarkable device, but it’s constant presence has created a world where many people need perpetual stimulation. When they aren’t checking their email or Instagram they are listening to music. When they aren’t listening to music they are listening to podcasts or books on tape. Studies have shown that many of us are stimulated up to 18 hours per day, a level of interaction that we just aren’t wired to handle.

So keep your technology and continue to achieve value from the incredible to expand the mind, but put the iPhone and the headphones away occasionally. Get out and move in nature, freeing your mind in the process. Fuel your creativity. I think you’ll be amazed by the results.

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