{"id":655148,"date":"2013-04-29T12:07:48","date_gmt":"2013-04-29T16:07:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.ted.com\/?p=75224"},"modified":"2013-04-29T12:10:36","modified_gmt":"2013-04-29T16:10:36","slug":"walking-meetings-5-surprising-thinkers-who-swore-by-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/655148","title":{"rendered":"Walking meetings? 5 surprising thinkers who swore by them"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Nilofer<\/a><\/p>\n

Nilofer Merchant’s boots at TED2013 were certainly made for walking. Photo: James Duncan Davidson<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

In today\u2019s talk<\/a>, Nilofer Merchant gives a startling statistic: we\u2019re sitting, on average, for 9.3 hours per day\u2014far more than the 7.7 hours we spend sleeping. \u201cSitting is so incredibly prevalent, we don\u2019t even question how much we\u2019re doing it,\u201d Merchant says.\"NiloferNilofer Merchant: Got a meeting? Take a walk<\/span><\/a> \u201cIn that way, sitting has become the smoking of our generation.\u201d<\/p>\n

But there are consequences. Physical inactivity, Merchant says, leads to upticks in our risk of breast cancer, colon cancer, heart disease, and type II diabetes.<\/p>\n

Merchant\u2019s own habits changed when a colleague couldn\u2019t fit a meeting into her schedule and asked if Merchant could come along on a dog walk instead. Now, she says, \u201cI\u2019ve taken that idea and made it my own.\u201d Instead of meeting in conference rooms, she asks people to go on walking meetings\u201420 to 30 miles\u2019 worth a week. \u201cIt\u2019s changed my life,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Merchant is carrying on a long tradition of frequent, even ritualistic, walking. Here are some other fans of the amble. Some are walk-and-talkers; others or simply stroll for its own sake.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Aristotle<\/b> allegedly<\/a> instructed students while strolling about\u2014which fits with his students\u2019 being called \u201cPeripatetics.\u201d
    \n.<\/span><\/li>\n
  2. In August 1910, Sigmund Freud<\/b> took a four-hour walk<\/a> with the Austrian composer Gustav Mahler, who had requested an \u201curgent consultation\u201d via telegraph, according to the BBC. Mahler\u2019s marriage was disintegrating, and he was about to have a breakdown\u2014hence the emergency walk-and-talk with the founder of psychoanalysis. In fact, Freud conducted a number of walking analyses, according to Freud: A Life for Our Time<\/i><\/a>.<\/i> Another significant example: Freud conducted his first training analysis on Max Eitingon in 1907 through a series of evening walks. Eitingon went to become president of the International Psychoanalytic Association.
    \n.<\/span><\/i><\/li>\n
  3. Steve Jobs<\/b> made a habit of the walking meeting, especially for first encounters, according to CNNMoney<\/a>, which quotes from Jobs\u2019 biography: \u201ctaking a long walk was his preferred way to have a serious conversation.\u201d
    \n.<\/span><\/i><\/li>\n
  4. Harry S. Truman<\/b> was a routine-oriented man, and walking was a fundamental part of that routine. According to the University of Virginia\u2019s Miller Center, Truman woke up at five in the morning for a \u201cvigorous\u201d walk of a mile or two, \u201cwearing a business suit and tie<\/a>!\u201d (This in addition to his frequent midday swimming session in the White House pool, \u201cwith his eyeglasses on.\u201d)
    \n.<\/span><\/li>\n
  5. Charles Dickens \u201c<\/b>was from childhood an avid, even compulsive, walker<\/a>,\u201d Sports Illustrated <\/i>wrote in 1988. (Apparently, the mid-1800s was \u201cthe golden age of professional foot racing, or \u2018pedestrianism.\u2019\u201d Who knew?) Dickens frequently walked around 20 miles a day\u2014one night in 1857, he logged 30 miles<\/a>\u2014and often did so at night. Walking was a means of both observing the cities around him and de-stressing. \u201cDickens found composition to be hard, painful work,\u201d SI <\/i>writes. \u201cThe hours he spent at his desk agitated him tremendously, and walking served as a kind of safety valve.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Nilofer Merchant’s boots at TED2013 were certainly made for walking. Photo: James Duncan Davidson In today\u2019s talk, Nilofer Merchant gives a startling statistic: we\u2019re sitting, on average, for 9.3 hours per day\u2014far more than the 7.7 hours we spend sleeping. \u201cSitting is so incredibly prevalent, we don\u2019t even question how much we\u2019re doing it,\u201d Merchant […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7342,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-655148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7342"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=655148"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655148\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=655148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=655148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=655148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}