That Neuroscience Guy - The Neurosience of the Camino de Santiago

Episode Date: April 11, 2022

The Camino de Santiago is a network of pilgrimage routes through Portugal and northwestern Spain that over 200,000 people travel every year. But why is such a trip so desirable? Why do we often find these trips can have huge benefits for our mental well being? In today's episode of That Neuroscience Guy, we use the Camino de Santiago as a model to discuss why pilgrimages and other long walking trips have benefits for your brain. 

Hi, my name is Olof Kergolsen and I'm a neuroscientist at the University of Victoria. And in my spare time, I'm that neuroscience guy. Welcome to the podcast. Back in 2012, I was sitting in an apartment in Halifax, and I watched this movie. And it was about something called the Camino de Santiago. And I was fascinated. If you haven't heard of the Camino, it's a religious trek, although a lot of people that do the trek aren't religious and you basically start you know at some point on the east side of Spain sometimes in France sometimes even further away and you basically walk across Spain to Santiago de Compostela and the reason you do this as well there's a number of reasons you know the traditional reason is that the Catholic faith would have us believe that St. James was buried in Santiago de Compostela, which is why some people call it

the Way of St. James. I didn't do it for religious reasons. I did it for personal reasons. And actually, the first time I did it, I started in Porto in Portugal. And then a year later, I started in St. Jean-Pied-de-Port in France. And, you know, in the space of the one year, I'd spent basically a heck of a lot of time walking across Spain. The first time I did 400 kilometers. The second time I just did over a thousand. And it's an interesting space that these kind of things put your brain in, where your head is at. So on today's podcast, it's the neuroscience of the Camino de Santiago, but it also applies to all of you people that like long distance treks or long walks or runs maybe. So why do we do that? What does our brain

crave this kind of thing? What drives us to spend this time alone, you know, walking or doing something just to sort of turn it all off? Well, the actual reality of it is pretty simple. You know, every time we make a decision, every time we're faced with a choice in life, it costs energy. So if you live a hectic lifestyle where it seems like every minute your brain is like working on overdrive, well that costs energy. Literally. You know you need more blood flow to replace the energy in the neurons in your brain. But that takes a toll on the system and your body is sort of saying well hey do we really have to keep doing this? So one of the reasons that we choose to do these sort of things where we, you know, go for a long

walk is because it doesn't take a lot of energy. Most of us, when we go for our walks and do these kind of things, we can work on autopilot. And we've kind of talked about this before. This would be classic system one decision-making. You know, you see a car coming, you know to step to the side of the road. When you have to cross a road, you know to pause and look both ways. And your brain just isn't exerting a lot of effort. So one of the reasons we choose to do these kind of things is literally our brain saying, hey, let's take a time out. Now, there's other reasons, of course, why we might do this. You know, some people on the Camino, you know, they do it because they're soul searching. You know, the classic Camino stories that I heard were, you know, someone significant died, you know, whether it was a partner,

a son or a daughter or a parent, a breakup. In my case, I don't mind sharing. I had lost someone that I loved dearly, and I was mourning that. So why, again, do we go for these sort of long walks and crave this? Well, again, this is your brain just taking a break. The reality is when something traumatic happens to us, your brain is processing why. You know, that's the big question, why? You know, why did that person die? Why did that person leave me? Why did I lose my job?

And your brain's trying to sort that out. Now, if you think of your typical, you know, North American lifestyle, you know, you're up, you're instantly on the Now if you think of your typical North American lifestyle, you're up, you're instantly on the go, you're drinking your morning coffee, you're getting ready for work. If you're a parent like me, you're making breakfast for your son, and then you take your son to school, then you're at work, and you're in meetings, and it's go, go, go, go, go. And if you're lucky, you get a five minute break and then you're working all afternoon and you pick up your kid and you get the idea. Life is hectic and you don't get time to process. So when something traumatic happens to you, you know, the reality is your

brain just has to work through it. You need to sort of think about it and go over it again and again and again. And that's where these long walks come in. It's a time where your body is on autopilot, like we said. You're totally in system one decision-making mode. And your brain is sort of churning through the reasons over and over and over again. And a lot of people ask me, you know, what did you find out there in the middle of the send of Spain walking along? And the reality is I just found time.

You know, when I did the Camino, we were up and out the door at 530 in the morning. We were walking for 10 to 12 hours a day. And it's not a hard trek. You know, growing up here on the west coast of Canada, when people say you're going for a hike, they mean like a hike. You know, you're going up and down mountains, you're going through rivers. It's pretty, pretty serious stuff. But on the Camino, you know, I tell a lot of people it's like the sand, it's a sand sidewalk realistically. You know, a lot of the Camino is on sidewalks or the side of a road. Some of it's on nature trails, but those

nature trails tend to be quite wide and pretty easy to navigate. So your brain's on autopilot and you've got that 10 to 12 hours a day just to think, just to process an event over and over and over again. Now, if you think back to what I was talking about with the crazy, hectic lifestyles we have, you just don't have that time. You know, you're sneaking in a minute here or a minute there and you remember something and you're like, oh crap that, and you're trying to figure it out, but then you're back to work and you get distracted. So another reason these sort of long walks of this time, you know, just for self is appealing to our brain, is because it gives your brain time to think without the distractions of everyday life.

Now, of course, in terms of the Camino, there's another aspect to it. You know, I don't mind saying that I'm a Roman Catholic, but I didn't walk the Camino for religious reasons. Although, you know, I would argue that maybe I found a bit of religion out there. But a lot of people do it for religious reasons. So what about religion in the brain in this kind of, you know, time for self? Well, we mentioned this in season one. But interestingly enough, there's this line of research that looks at left temporal lobe epilepsy. And people that have left temporal lobe epilepsy sometimes, now not all the time, there's a lot of people that have left temporal lobe epilepsy that don't experience this, but some people experience religious sensation. And, you know, is religion a part of the brain? Well, of course it is. It's a belief structure.

Now, is it tied to the left temporal lobe? You know, I don't really know, but, you know, your brain in these sort of situations also has time to have those feelings. Now, it doesn't matter what religion you're picking, or it could just be a sense of, you know, one with the universe, if you will. But again, another reason these long walks and these kind of journeys appeal to us is you get that time where you can process these religious sensations, if you will. And like I said, with the left temporal lobe epilepsy bit, you know, there's even evidence that parts of our brain might be hardwired for that. Now, having said that, I can tell you that there's no specific God spot in the brain. You know,

if you went just on Google Scholar, you could see that there are plenty of studies that show that when people are thinking about religion or having religious sensations, that parts of the brain light up. But I'd have to say that the data is inconclusive and you can't say that it's, you know, a proof of something more than, you know, day-to-day life or not. So please don't think I'm making that claim. So that was kind of my experience on the Camino de Santiago. Like I said, you know, the first time I walked 400 kilometers I walked from Porto up to Santiago de Compostela, then I walked out to the coast in a little place called Mechia. The second time I started in St. John-Pied-de-Port in France and I walked a thousand kilometers. It was just over 800 kilometers to get to Santiago de Compostela and then we walked another

200 kilometers out to the coast. And I experienced all of those things. I experienced that ability to just turn my brain off, which is an amazing feeling. Just put your brain on autopilot. You let it do what it does. And if you think back to some of the stuff we've talked about in the podcast, the default mode network gets activated. It's that time for your brain just to do all that stuff that it doesn't get to do because you're too busy doing other things. And I definitely experienced the time for reflection, you know, the time to just think about a problem over and over again, work through the problem from all of the possible angles.

And I have to admit, I experienced a little bit of religion. I'm not going to say that's tied to the brain, but the reality is there is no, and I hope I don't offend anyone with this, the soul, which is an interesting concept from a hardcore neuroscience perspective, doesn't exist. Your brain is just a bunch of neurons. 86 billion the last time I checked with a few trillion interconnections. And really that's all there is. And it's that pattern of electrical activity that you know gives you religious sensation or your beliefs about all of these things. And out on the Camino, I found all of those things. So here's the challenge. Go for a long walk. It doesn't have to be in Spain, going across the country, of course,

but just find someplace quiet where you can go for a long walk and let your brain relax. Take the time to let you, you know, think through a problem that's bothering you. And of course, if you want to, maybe think about something a little bit higher. Anyways, that's all I have for today's episode. Remember, our website is up, thatneuroscienceguy.com. There you're going to find links to our blog, to our YouTube channel, which I have to apologize. We were planning to leap into it, but so much else is going on. It's hard to get that going, but we are adding some videos slowly but surely. There's of course links to the podcast. There's links to our merch. Currently, we still have the

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All right. That's all I've got for this week. I'll see you on Wednesday for another Neuroscience Byte. My name is Olaf Kregolsen, and I'm that neuroscience guy. Thank you so much for listening.