New study suggests people's mood affected by how they walk

A recent study found that deliberately walking like a happy person can lift one’s spirits, according to media report on Wednesday.

A "happy walk" involves an upright posture, arm and body swings, and faster speed. Walking in a happy style makes people feel happy, whereas adopting the gait of a depressed person can bring on sadness.

"There is a mutual influence between mood and body and movement," said Johannes Michalak, a professor in the department of psychology and psychotherapy at Germany's Witten Herdecke University and first author of the study.

During the research, 47 university students, who did not know about the true aims of the study, had their gait monitored with motion capture technology.

About a half of the students were guided to walk with a "happy" gait on treadmills. When they doing so, a gauge on a video monitor shifted to the right, meaning they were in a happier mood.

For the other half of the students who walk the "sad walk", the gauge direction was reversed.

After four minutes, both groups of students were asked how many of the 40 different positive and negative emotional words were a good description of their own personality.

After two minutes of the word quiz, they continued walking for another eight minutes.

The final and crucial task on the treadmill was to recall as many of the earlier descriptive words as possible. The finding showed happy walkers recalled an average of six positive words and 3.8 negative words, compared with the sad walkers who recalled an average of 5.47 positive words and 5.63 negative words.

The study suggested that choosing a right walking style could help counter the negative mental processes associated with depression, researchers said.