Walking Does Wonders for Your Health

Walking is a wonderful exercise for everyone. We all know that regular exercise is essential for good health and wellbeing. Our bodies are designed to move and everyone feels better for improving their fitness. While for some the desire to be physically active is part of their character, for many others there are a multitude of barriers to regular exercise … this is where walking can be the key to a better life.

Walking overcomes so many of those barriers to regular activity. For a start we all know how to do it so no training is required, it is free and has few side effects. You can walk anytime and anywhere, from home or when away. You can do it alone or with others – your friends, a walking group or family members of any age. You can start with a short walk at a slow pace while you build your fitness up to longer faster paced walks. You can control the timing and intensity of your walk to suit your individual needs.

The health benefits of walking are many and for the scientifically minded there are a myriad of studies confirming this.

Walking improves your strength, balance, flexibility and co-ordination. It helps maintain and improve your bone density to prevent osteoporosis. Walking helps to keep your joints mobile and healthy, even if you have osteoarthritis. Research has found that regular activity reduces the risk of hip fracture. Walking is a great way to get back into exercise if you have been unwell or injured. Your doctor or physical therapist will be able to guide you with details of when to start and how much to do.

The benefits of walking for the heart and circulation are well documented. Walking reduces blood pressure so regular exercise is an important part in prevention and treatment of hypertension (high blood pressure). Walking both reduces your cholesterol and improves the types of cholesterol in your blood. Physical activity will reduce to ‘bad’ cholesterol (the low-density lipoproteins) while increasing the ‘good cholesterol (the high-density lipoproteins). Walking reduces body fat so helping to control your weight. High blood pressure, high cholesterol and being overweight are all important risk factors in coronary heart disease (disease of the blood vessels that feed your heart) and stroke. Walking regularly also decreases the risk of developing Type 2 diabetes that comes on later in life. People who walk regularly live longer!

The list of health benefits from regular walking goes on to include improvement in sleep, chronic fatigue syndrome and chronic back pain. Studies have even shown that regular strenuous activity lowers your risk of breast cancer.

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, regular walking will improve your mental and emotional well being. Walking lowers your stress and anxiety levels and both prevents, and treats depression. Naturally occurring chemicals of wellbeing are released with exercise so lifting your mood and creating a feeling of wellbeing. This in turn improves your self esteem so empowering you to make positive choices in other areas of your life.
How much would you pay for a medicine that could achieve all of this?

So – why wait?

If you find yourself making excuses to not go walking the best trick is to put your shoes and shorts out the night before, put the alarm on 30 minutes earlier and by the time you have pulled your clothes on, had a drink of water and headed out the door you will find yourself waking up in the crisp morning air. Then for the rest of the day you will fell quite satisfied with yourself that you have done your daily exercise.

"The findings demonstrate that significant improvements in cardiorespiratory fitness can be achieved and maintained over 24 months via exercise counselling with a prescription for walking 30 minutes per day, either at a moderate intensity five to seven days per week, or at a hard intensity three to four days per week," Glen E. Duncan, Ph.D., R.C.E.P.S.M., of the University of Washington, Seattle, and colleagues concluded.

Reference: (Arch Intern Med. 2005; 165: 2362-2369.)

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