[Music]
my son was born on a cold January night
what started as a very typical labor
became an emergency c-section complete
with a plummeting heart rate his a
missed epidural mine and a moment when
the surgeon thought he left a sponge
someplace that wasn't supposed to be we
were released from the hospital four
days later and I returned home
battered postpartum and totally freaked
out other than a few doctor's
appointments and one slightly traumatic
trip with my mother to try to buy
nursing bras I didn't leave the house
for a month and my husband and I holding
on by a thread
we were co-parenting but not connecting
then one morning we woke up to bright
brilliant sunshine which is a rarity in
New York in February we bundled the baby
up placed him carefully in the stroller
you know how fragile they seemed at that
age and we went for a walk I can still
feel the Sun on my face and the handle
of that stroller and I can picture the
hideous yellow maternity jacket I was
wearing which was still the only thing
that fit and I vividly recall looking at
my husband and saying I think we can do
this and that was the turning point now
that wasn't the first time that walking
has saved me nor was it the last in
college I lost more than 30 pounds
walking on a hiking trip in British
Columbia I came up with the idea that
would become our first truly successful
business and in the hundreds of hours
I've spent walking with my girlfriends
we've talked about everything and I mean
everything
politics relationships kids work
business everything I have shaken off
more stress created more ideas lost for
weight walking then through any other
habit or practice walking has kept me
sane fit and healthy now some of this
doesn't come as a surprise right we've
all heard that walking is really good
for our bodies but I don't know that we
know and appreciate just how good
walking has been shown
to reduce our risk of high blood
pressure high cholesterol heart disease
diabetes dementia osteoporosis and
several types of cancer and some of us
have heard that walking is really great
to combat depression and boost your mood
walking is a fantastic antidote to a
crappy day and still some of us have
heard that walking can help improve your
decision-making improve your memory and
fuel your creativity okay so walking is
great for your mind your body and your
mood but there's one last piece of the
puzzle and that is this what walking
with other people can do for you and
that's where the magic happens earlier
this year my company undertook a study
of 2,300 women and we discovered a
startling fact 73 percent of us
experience loneliness now there are
about a hundred women here today that
means that 73 of you sometimes feel
lonely and a study reported by UC
Berkeley shows that one in four
Americans feel like they don't have a
single close friend in the world women
are lonely now maybe that's not
startling there's been a lot written
recently about the loneliness epidemic
and loneliness is very very bad for us
in fact the Surgeon General said and I'm
going to try to quote him exactly that
loneliness and weak social connections
are associated with a reduction in life
span similar to that caused by smoking
15 cigarettes a day
but in our study we discovered another
fact one that got us on a journey to get
women up together and walking and that
is this women who regularly walk with
their friends report that their two and
a half times less likely to often feel
lonely now why is that why is it that
walking together is so powerful I
believe it's a function of three things
all grounded in science and at how we as
human beings are built first we're
social beings and we are wired to krei
and enjoy shared experiences researchers
believe this comes directly from our
biological need to belong
our ancestors were a whole lot safer
walking in the woods with their tribe
and they were walking in the woods by
themselves and it turns out that we
enjoy experiences more when we share
them a fascinating study from Yale
University demonstrates this and it's a
study that's pretty simple and it
involves chocolate and anything that
involves chocolate is good with me so
they divided the subjects into two
groups and had them taste a piece of
chocolate with one key difference in the
first group people were paired up with a
partner and they tasted that chocolate
at the same moment as their partner well
on the other group they were paired up
with a partner but one person tasted the
chocolate while their partner was
engaged in another activity they were
reading a book of art and what they
found is that the people who tasted
chocolate at the same moment as their as
their partner found that chocolate
tasted better than the other people same
chocolate different response simply put
you are likely to enjoy that walk more
and remember it more fondly when you
share it with another person second
walking releases a burst of oxytocin
which is a hormone that heightens our
ability to feel empathy and emotion
research shows that oxytocin fires up
our desire for kinship makes us care
about other people and helps us connect
as human beings and yes it's the same
hormone that triggers labor and nursing
which makes sense right because it's
encouraging us to bond with our babies
now this is a little bit of an aside but
I find it so interesting I have to share
it with you there is some preliminary
research that shows that oxytocin
affects men and women differently in the
social context well it tends to make
women more collaborative it tends to
make men more competitive so it may be
that sharing a walk with your girlfriend
has a greater impact on you than sharing
a walk with your guy friends and third
tons of research show that our brains
process differently while we're walking
because part of your brain is busy
putting one foot in
front of the other the rest of your
brain is free to problem-solve to roam
and to think more deeply so when you
walk with your friend you have the
opportunity to process what it is that
she's saying and you can take moments of
silence to really think about what it is
she's sharing or think about what you
want to say imagine how awkward it would
be sitting silently in a coffee shop for
30 seconds staring at your girlfriend
weird right but when you're walking
together you really can take those
moments of silence walking also fuels
our creativity encourages our brain to
think more creatively and I believe that
this is part of what causes are walking
conversations to be less linear more
creative allowing us to really follow
the flow of a conversation wherever it
may lead simply put walking provides the
perfect opportunity an environment for
conversation and connection
it offers time and space free of
distraction it offers the increased
pleasure that comes from sharing an
experience with another person it gives
us a blast of oxytocin that encourages
us to connect and it enables our brains
to work at their very best earlier this
year I co-founded a movement called 99
walks and we are on a mission to get a
million women walking because together
we can help combat loneliness improve
women's well-being and make the world a
little bit smaller all through the
simple act of lacing up our sneakers and
walking out the door together you guys I
think we can do this I'm Joyce Schulman
and I'm on a mission to get a million
women walking
[Applause]