Hot Girl Walk? Nah. We're Doing "Spite Strolls" Now.

“I’m going for a walk!” I yell up the stairs to my family as I snatch my earbuds from the large silver fish-shaped dish on our entry table. It’s become such a frequent occurrence lately that it’s starting to feel like a ritual: I wake up, see or read some infuriating new headline, feel the sickly heat of anger start to swell up in my chest, and holler that familiar refrain to my household before bolting out the door and down the street, arms pumping, jaw set, mentally steaming.

A year or two ago, I might have joked I was going on another “hot girl walk.” We all know the term. It has inundated our social media feeds since 2021, when University of Southern California student Mia Lind coined it during the pandemic as a way to focus on gratitude and relieve stress. If you’re a woman and you’re strolling somewhere, boom: hot girl walk. We were hot girl walking here and hot girl walking there, hot girl walking to the mailbox and down to the dog park. And that was great!

But times have changed. The “hot girl walks” women are angry. Rightfully so. We’re looking around at the world and getting all worked up, and well, a hot girl walk just doesn’t hit the same when you’re filled with rage (because *gestures broadly at everything*).

So, might I tender the following suggestion? If summer was for hot girl walks, let fall be for “spite strolls.” I know that whenever I’m close to combusting, a rage-fueled loop does wonders. And according to therapists, my instinct to stomp around the block is actually a good one.

Why your body wants to stomp

“Anger is a full-body event before it’s ever a thought,” says Dr. Easton Gaines, a clinical psychologist and founder of MindCare Psychology. What’s happening inside? Your sympathetic nervous system kicks in, adrenaline and cortisol surge, your heart rate climbs, and your muscles tense. “Your body is literally getting ready to do something.”

Of course, so often when we’re angry, we don’t do anything about it. We just sort of resume regular life, because life doesn’t really care about our righteous anger. So, we respond to texts and answer emails. We unload the dishwasher (loudly, with fervor). Gaines points to what Emily and Amelia Nagoski, authors of Burnout, call an incomplete stress cycle: the stressor passes, but all that mobilized energy stays put.

Enter: walking. “Moving can help because you are doing what your body is primed to do in that moment and giving all that ‘fight’ energy a place to go,” explains Dr. Rachel Proujansky, a clinical psychologist in private practice in New York City.

Or, as Gaines puts it, “You can’t think your way out of a physiological state. You have to move through it.”

The importance of strolling, not stewing

The thing is, you want your spite stroll to be productive, and there’s one surefire way for it not to be.

“Rumination is replaying the argument for the fortieth time and drafting the perfect comeback, and every replay re-triggers the stress response,” says Gaines. “So you can walk three miles and come home more activated than when you left.”

What you want to do instead is try channeling, which Proujansky says can take one of three forms:

1. You can admit you’re too angry to think straight and use the walk to focus on something else until you cool down.
2. You can walk and problem-solve at the same time.
3. Or you can simply let yourself feel it and notice what anger is like in your body.

The trick here is to pick one before you head out. Mandy Lam, a licensed clinical social worker, music therapist, and founder of Mindful Roots Collective, suggests setting an intention at the door: Is this walk about burning off energy, or about figuring out what my anger is about?

How to boost the benefits

If you really want to make your spite stroll count, experts say there are certain strategies you can tap into to maximize the benefits.

Start in your body.

Don’t jump straight into mulling over whatever story has you fired up. Rather, spend the first few minutes focusing on your body, says Gaines: “Notice the heat in your chest, the clench in your jaw, the speed of your stride. Name it: ‘I’m so angry.’ Naming it is regulating.”

Attach a role to the tension.

In other words, notice where your tension is and then use it almost like a diagnostic tool. “If your fists are clenched, maybe you try shaking them out,” says Sarah Razo, a licensed therapist who specializes in somatics (and a mom herself). Tight shoulders? Give them a gentle stretch mid-stride. If your brain keeps reloading the argument or stressor, she recommends counting your footsteps.

Build your perfect playlist.

You had to know it was coming, right? Few things in this world feel better than scream-singing a song (even if you’re just scream-singing it in your head) that feeds your mood. And Lam confirms that listening to music that matches your emotional state can help you process and release the feeling, a core tenet of music therapy.

Dr. David Timpanaro of Step Up Family Services has a specific suggestion: “An angry song like ‘Break Stuff’ by Limp Bizkit can help push that anger to the top.” Something lighter, he adds, can bring you back down when you’re ready for the rage to subside.

Enjoy the free cardio.

Hey, walking is good for us; this we know! And when people are mad, they tend to walk faster. “You might get the most vigorous workout of your week courtesy of whatever annoyed you,” points out Gaines, adding, “Brisk movement helps metabolize those stress hormones, and many people notice their heart rate and tension settle lower afterward than where they started.”

Why moms especially need somewhere to put their frustrations

Women are told from an early age that anger is unbecoming or “hysterical,” and that a good woman (and, later, mother) absorbs it and smiles.

But the experts would like a f*cking word.

“Trying to suppress our emotions is like trying to push a kickboard under the water,” says Proujansky. “It takes a lot of force, and when we inevitably lose that firm grip, we don’t know exactly what direction it’s going to come flying out in.” Giving anger a place to go means “we can choose how it comes out.”

It also helps to stop thinking of or treating anger like some character flaw. “Anger is information. It tells you a boundary has been crossed, a need isn’t being met, or the load you’re carrying isn’t fair,” says Gaines. “Good moms get angry. They’re humans doing a relentless job, often on very little sleep.”

And it’s worth mentioning that our kids are watching. When they see us address our anger, name it, move it, and come back calmer, Gaines says that “they learn big feelings are survivable and manageable. That’s a far better lesson than ‘Mom is always fine… until she’s suddenly not.’”

How to stick the landing

If whatever set you off is still waiting when you finish your walk, don’t just rush right back in. Gaines suggests pausing beforehand to take stock of what’s shifted. Take three slow breaths with long exhales, asking yourself what the anger was trying to tell you.

Then it’s up to you to decide what you want to do with the answer.

“I always recommend taking action to either act on what made you angry and address it with a clear mind, or ‘parking lot’ the thought for another day but actively consider how you want to approach it,” says Timpanaro. “The situation that caused you anger is still there, but your ability to approach it with a clear mind is now increased.”

Of course, much of the rage women and moms are feeling right now is a response to the world at large and things that feel completely outside our control. So while we may not be able to directly address or resolve the root of that anger with a spite stroll, at least we’ll be facing those feelings with more clarity, a lower heart rate, and a few thousand extra steps under our belts.