Walking and exercise aren’t just the medicine that helped David Slack recover from a heart attack: they help him be more productive too. By David Slack  

My life’s fitness programme began on my 27th birthday with a heart attack.  

I came out of coronary care entirely gun-shy and tentative about any kind of exertion at all. I went home, stayed put. 

My friend Anna, a nurse, visited me and said, “Come on, we’re going to just walk to the letterbox and back. Nothing’s going to happen. Trust me.” We did. She was right.  

And then I was walking to the dairy, and then into town, and walking myself everywhere, because after a heart attack they don’t want you doing any sort of driving for quite a while.

And then my mate Steve rang: “I’m going to the pool today, want to come?” I told him I doubted I could do even one length to his 40. He said, “So just come and do that.” I did. When we were done, he said, “Come back tomorrow and see if you can make it two.” A month later I was going every day and doing 40.

I have been running and walking and exercising ever since, giving myself a decent chance. 

The routine changes with the comings and goings of life, but I have never stopped moving. Recently, I have been up before dawn, pulling on my shoes, out the door and into the dark; quiet footfalls in empty streets. Or at least I imagine they’re quiet footfalls; I have music going in my ears. 

I like the solitude; the meditative stillness. There’s the occasional car or jogger or dog walker but mostly it’s just me alone with my thoughts. There is nothing better than walking or running for turning the tumblers, sparking up fresh words for the work I do each day.

I will be out there for more than an hour. Sometimes I know I won’t be able to hold on to all the words if I don’t get them recorded, and so I’ll dictate them to the phone, breaking that meditative quiet, rolling past the other joggers and dog walkers, the old runner talking to himself again.

You walk, you run, you swing your limbs, and the tumblers turn in your mind. So much comes to mind, so much turns over. If ever I’m stuck, a walk will bring fresh words. It works every time. 

It works even better in the wilderness. We have a rhythm that works for us, my wife and I. Karren leads us, steadily, much better for us than my bull-at-a-gate pace. We go along slowly, we talk, we contemplate, we drop into a whole different rhythm. 

We love it out there, yet for decades we’d left it behind. We have our friend Hazel Phillips to thank for getting us back out. “We’re making a group to do a Great Walk,” she said one day. “Why don’t you come?” That was all it took to relight the fire. 

Even before we’re home from an expedition, we’ll be planning the next. And somehow, as conscious as you remain of the great appeal, it still comes as a fresh delight to pull the boots back on and drop once more into this other beat.

It can seem like not that much at all, but you can change the direction of a life just by saying, “Come for a walk.”

– David Slack publishes the daily newsletter ‘More than a Feilding’.