‘The doctor should prescribe one foot in front of the other’, for those who, when walking, are constantly occupied by the addictive entertainment on their phones. Influencer Mady Maio was different and wanted to challenge this. Not just any walk, she has been taking walks by herself, eliminating the distractions in which she now takes walks in silence. Inspired by her boyfriend’s idea, she was anxious and resistant to trying silent walking at first.

She described the first few minutes of the walk as a sort of mental mayhem until her brain fog lifted, and ideas started entering her mind. Ever since she filmed the silent walk with just herself and uploaded it on TikTok, it has aroused nearly half a million views and became TikTok’s latest wellness obsession for combining meditation and exercise which could further help improve our mental health. She soon proposed the new idea of walking, which is called ‘the silent girl walk’, where it is just the world, nature, and you. There are no other distractions, no goals to achieve, nothing else. Just a silent beauty walk.

So, what are the benefits of silent walking? Silent walking helps with both our physical and mental health. There is research showing that walking for up to 10 minutes a day can increase our life expectancy. It has also been shown to boost creativity and decrease depression. Walking already helps to lower our stress and release endorphins, which overall uplifts our mood. This proves that spending a couple of minutes just walking is beneficial for a healthy mindset.

What is the difference in the benefits of silent walking compared to the ordinary way we walk? It is evident that individuals’ attention spans are lowered during their walks as people often tend to switch between tasks. Silent walking not only benefits our mental and physical state but also helps us with meditating our whole mindset as there is nothing in hand to distract you. The only thing you can’t control is where you go on a walk to what’s around you.

The content creator Arielle Lorre, suggests that the main benefit is that individuals are surrounded by nature which they are not distracted by anything they would normally bring with them. Beauty walks don’t require you to bring your bag so you can avoid these distractions. Particularly noticeable is humans are always on their phones and because of this, it makes people feel disconnected from the world. Without these sorts of distractions, it increases our sensitivity in senses like how we see or smell, which helps detect changes in how we perceive the environment. This, without the external distractions, could bring us a different experience by paying attention to the things around us. Walking in silence is a form of meditation that helps people focus on their physical sensations, thoughts, and emotions of the present moment without any judgment.

Silent walks also help contribute to our daily lives and routines as they suggest we take more digital breaks in between, which increases our concentration and our sensitivity to using our senses. It serves more than just a walk where we can connect to nature, it is a spiritual meditation that offers a quality of silence that serves as an active reset of our minds while we are on a walk without distractions. Research also shows that the walk helps with improving overall sleep quality. Thus, with the overall spiritual connection which increases our relationship with nature, that’s how silent walks benefit more than just a normal walk.

Therefore, with so many benefits of a silent walk and how the trend of ‘the beauty of a silent walk’ is blowing up, why not try and walk in silence for a while to get that deeper connection with the environment and the spiritual level and leave all distractions behind?

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