With finals on the horizon, widespread panic has ensued. Students are frantic. Snack-shack spending has reached a record high. Most importantly, questions of how to de-stress during such difficult times are ever-present. The solution: we must bring back a forgotten therapeutic gem of the past. We must bring back the long walk on the beach.

The long walk on the beach has been well-documented as a natural relaxant ever since its mysterious origins in the 1970’s. Back then, early adopters stumbled upon the activity by accident, in an attempt to escape the ups and downs of their everyday lives. What followed this discovery was a vicious civil war within the relaxation community in which long walk pioneers argued for the value of purely natural relaxation. However, since then, as the pace of life grew faster, the movement failed to modernize, and the long walk on the beach was mostly forgotten. 

One would think because of these rigorous standards for relaxation, us humans would have figured out a fool-proof calming process by now. Yet I am here to report firsthand that we still struggle to find tranquility on a daily basis. The pace of life has become too rushed, rendering even the most modern of relaxation methods ineffective. Living at one’s own pace has gone out of style; instead we choose to raise our pace of life to an unsustainable rate. All the while, we continue to suffer. To combat this, we must slow ourselves down. The long walk on the beach presents this opportunity: a chance to slow life’s beat to the internal rhythm of peace.

The early pioneers knew this. That is why they took a leap of faith to start the long walk on the beach movement; they knew that it could change the world. 

So here I sit today, talking to you through a Logitech keyboard some 50 years later, but asking again for that same leap of faith. Let us bring a relaxation gem back into this stressed-out world. Let us slow down the tempo of life, and find that internal rhythm of peace. Most of all, let us take a long walk on the beach.