Go, take a walk!

Earlier, you told off somebody to “go take a walk” when you wanted to be left you alone. People still do that. Conversely, one walks out in protest, as hecklers did from a recent fashion show said to have been organised by the daughter of an Uzbek Robber Baron. But with growing realisation of the health benefits of walking, what was once an imprecation is fast turning into a doctor’s prescription.

To be sure, this is hardly a new phenomenon. Four centuries before the birth of Jesus Christ, Hippocrates, venerated as the Father of Western Medicine, praised walking as “man’s best medicine”. The pioneering Greek physician believed that you had two physicians: your left leg and your right leg! And when someone’s body and mind were found to be out of synch, Hippocrates would order them to “go, take a walk” and they would invariably get well!

No wonder, walking has remained the world’s most popular exercise. For one, it’s free. One does not have to enrol in an expensive gym or go to an exclusive walking track or a boulevard to indulge in it. Even a person incarcerated in aprison cell can do it. Yet, why do so many couch potatoes just refuse to move?

Medicalising the mindset by labelling it ‘ambulophobia’ (fear of walking, not ambulances!) is unhelpful. People of faith advise turning to ‘higher’ powers instead! “He giveth power to the faint,” says the Bible. “And to them that have no might, He increaseth strength.”

Sant Tukaram’s song says the same thing: “Wherever I go, you O Lord are with me, walking me hand in hand.” Where’s the fear of walking alone then?