Listening to The Proclaimers' I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles) Doesn't Make You Want to Walk More.

As you know this blog is all about helping you make intelligent choices. Whether it's the apps you have on your mobile or the site where you buy your books from. And my persistent dedication towards ensuring my readers make the best of choices sees me use my body as a guinea pig.

My recent experiment combined my passion for walking and behavioural effects of music. And since it's rather annoying to write this blog as if it's a psychology paper, I'd just come to the point. For an entire day, I decided to listen to the Scottish band Proclaimers' hit number 'I'm gonna be (500) miles' to see if I walk more that day. If you remember the song, it's about a lover proclaiming his love for his partner by saying he'd gladly walk a 500 miles, all just to fall at his beloved's door. Deep stuff. You know the song. It's the one that would always play on loop in Marshall's car in How I Met Your Mother. And like the cast in the series, I had to agree, the song has immense repeat value.



So for all day I listened to it. I even used state-of-the-art measuring equipment (Read Google Fit - the bug-filled pedometer app from Google). Then I went about my day as usual. And you would never guess what happened next. I actually ended up walking much less on that day. In fact, on other days (31st March and 2nd April) when I was listening to the music I listened to usually I walked more. Which proves that your motivation to walk isn't at all influenced by the music you listen to.

We back everything with numbers.

PS: Unless you listen to Eye of the Tiger. Must try that someday.