Walking with your head held high

Look up to see more and feel better during your walks

May 14, 2025

If you don’t look above the skyline you might miss the sky

Hello walkers and writers 👋🏻

May is National Walking Month in the UK and there’s lots of events – many free – happening around the country. It’s also the London Walking Festival and there’s heaps to explore with talks, workshops and walks.

I’ve also been very busy with walkerly writerly stuff. An impromptu walk with Mental Health Mates in Beverley led to a chance conversation with Radio Humberside’s Richard Stead. We chatted about why I started The Writer’s Walk and where it might be going next. You can hear it on BBC Sounds until 23 May (I’m on at 16 mins into the show).

And to mark National Walking Month, the lovely folk at Whitefox Publishing got in touch and asked me to do a Q&A with them. In that post I share a couple of my favourite walking writers, the writer I’d love to walk with, and a writing prompt.

And in case you missed it, I went for a walk n talk in Oxford with writer and tone of voice master, Nick Parker. We chatted about curiosity, movement, learning and experimenting and you can read it in our interview. And don’t forget to check out his Substack, Tone Knob, for all things tone of voice.

So on we go to this edition, where I share what I noticed when I stopped staring at the ground beneath my feet – or at my phone! – and lifted my head to look around.

Walking

I usually start my in-person walkshops with a little warm-up exercise to help people notice how they walk. First, I invite everyone to imagine they’re running an errand or doing their usual commute as we walk around. Next, I invite them to imagine they have more time and ask them to walk around again. Afterwards, I ask them what they noticed and how they felt each time. In the first warm-up, most people look down at the ground or at their feet, they lean forward, take short steps and walk quickly. And in the second, they lift their heads, walk slower, take longer steps and look around more. The warm-up exercise often results in a chat about how busy they are and that they’re often so focused on getting from A to B, or checking their phone as they move, that they don’t pay much attention to what’s around them. We also chat about posture and how we feel when we walk with our head down and shoulders hunched compared with when we walk with our head up and back straight. Most people agree that when they slow down a bit and lift their head, they feel better than when they’re hunched up and racing about.

There’s growing research into this too, with studies on the impact our posture has on things like headaches, back pain, stress, confidence and even brain function and memory. It would appear that not only are we less likely to notice obstacles like other people, cyclists or traffic when we walk with our heads down, it impacts our posture, which can impact our blood flow, breathing, stress and how we feel emotionally12.

While many of the studies are small, or focus on posture while sitting or standing rather than walking, I think it’s still food for thought. Because the point of The Writer’s Walk is to slow down, take your time and notice the things around you, so you can take creative inspiration from them.

You see, if I hadn’t looked up while walking through Tivoli Corner at the Bank of England…

Tivoli Corner, Bank of England - created so people could walk by without having to squeeze along the narrow pavement

…I wouldn’t have noticed the hole in the roof or the words carved into it.

Finding words above: “The bank made this way through Tivoli Corner for the citizens of London AD 1936”

If I hadn’t looked up when I paused to catch my breath while stomping up a steep hill on the Gower Peninsula in Wales, I might have missed this paraglider.

Catching the sights while catching my breath

If I hadn’t looked up when taking a Sunday stroll along the London Parkland Walk, I might have missed this Spriggan – a sculpture by Marilyn Collins.

If I hadn’t looked up while walking along my favourite London street, I wouldn’t have spotted this unexpected cascade of greenery on a rooftop.

If I hadn’t looked up while walking in Shoreditch, I would never have seen this monkey perched on top of a street sign.

Looking up when walking in nature also has benefits. You might spot a sparrowhawk circling above you, see an interesting looking cloud, or catch the trees dancing when they think you’re not looking.

So this time, I invite you to try the warm-up exercises for yourself then go for a walk, making a point of slowing down and pausing to look up once in a while. Because, as a wise man once said:

Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.
Ferris Bueller

Writing

Reflect on your walk by using one, or all, of these starting points:

When I looked down I saw
When I looked up I saw
When I looked down I felt
When I looked up I felt

As always, please feel free to let me know what you thought to this edition and what you noticed during your warm-up or on your walk. And remember to keep looking up.