Reading While Walking

If you’re struggling to maintain an active lifestyle, and not finding time to read, then there is a solution for you. You can knockout two of your goals with the same amount of time. Take your reading on your walks with you. Reading while walking is a great way to complete two activities at the same time. With a little practice, you’ll be able to do both quite well at the same time.

Reading is one of those activities that is nice to do, but not as critical to your health if you do skip it. If you are going to cut an activity out of your daily routine, reading should get the cut before walking. However, if you’re already walking or planning to add it into your daily routine, then bringing your reading hobby along with you is a great way to keep both of these excellent activities as part of your life.

You should not read while walking in areas with lots of people, heavy traffic, or lots of uneven terrain. You’ll simply not have enough attention for both of these activities. You’ll do one well while the other will be neglected and it can lead to some serious injuries if you’re not careful. If you go to a park or walk in an area that is safe to have less focus on your surroundings, then reading while you walk is fine.

In any scenario, you can always listen to an audiobook while walking. Listening to audiobooks while walking is an excellent way to keep your pace up, your focus on your surroundings, but still be able to get through a few chapters of your favorite book. We highly recommend that this is the way you do your reading while walking. You can easily do both of these activities at the same time safely and have enough focus on both. You won’t need to slow down to listen to audiobooks on your daily walk.

If you are comfortable actually reading while walking (not just listening) then it’s another way you can complete your reading goal as well. As stated earlier, make sure you’re in a location that is safe to have less than full attention on your surroundings. Carrying a book while reading is a skill that will take some practice. If you’re doing it in a location that’s not safe, you’re likely to run into other people or trip on something that you come across. The other side of that is that you won’t have enough focus on your book because you’re so busy watching your surroundings that you won’t understand what’s happening.

We like to walk in our neighborhood around the block - there aren’t a lot of people on the sidewalks, and there is very little traffic. Carrying a Kindle is by far the easiest way to read while walking. You can certainly read a physical book as well, but your pace will likely be slowed quite a bit when doing so as you’ll usually need both hands to comfortably hold the book. With a Kindle, it is very easy to use a single hand for reading which allows you to be able to keep your pace while reading.

Start slowly on your reading and walking together if you’re going to be using an actual book (or Kindle). Figure out the pace you can walk while still being able to actually read. Over time, you’ll be able to increase your pace, but initially you’ll likely need to slow down a bit. Learn the terrain you’ll be walking and make note of any dangerous areas so that when you come to them you can pay attention as needed. Learn to keep enough attention on the road ahead of you to be able to read while walking safely. Over time, you’ll learn to do these things more easily, but at first they’ll be tough.

Getting some of your favorite books each day can easily be added to a daily walk. Audiobooks are the safest and best option to do so, but you can also read an actual book if you’d prefer. In any case, knock two tasks out in the same amount of time each day.