The Benefits of Walking

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What are the Benefits of Walking?

If you want to start living healthy, you don’t need to buy an expensive gym membership or sign up for a complicated course. No matter what age, gender, or lifestyle you have, sometimes a brisk walk is all you need to maintain or improve your overall health and well-being at all levels.

 

According to Dr. Thomas Frieden, former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, walking is “the closest thing we have to a wonder drug.” And he’s not wrong; daily walking can help with weight loss; heart function; lengthening your lifespan; strengthening your bones, joints, and muscles; fighting insomnia; boosting your immune system; giving you energy; improving brain function; improving your balance and coordination; and improving your mental health, and it may also help to fight or prevent deadly conditions such as cancer, strokes, heart disease, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, depression, and dementia. In short, walking is one of the fastest and easiest routes to healthy living one could find.

 

Does walking Helps You to Lose or Maintain Weight?

Of course, if you want to live a healthy lifestyle, any type of physical exercise helps to burn calories—and burnt calories leads to weight loss. A 30-minute walk can burn as much as 200 calories, and fast-paced or longer walks burn even more.

 

But not only does walking burn calories, it may also both curb appetites for sweet food and cut the effects of obesity-promoting genes in half. In one Harvard study, researchers studied 32 obesity genes in more than 12,000 people, and discovered that those effects were cut in half when participants walked “briskly for about an hour a day.” Additionally, studies conducted at the University of Exeter found that even a 15-minute walk can reduce sugary cravings.

 

Does walking Helps Improve Your Heart Function?

Walking can also help to improve heart function in a variety of ways. When you walk, your heart pumps faster, blood flows better, and your oxygen rate increases and delivers vital red blood cells to the rest of your body. So, naturally, regular walking can help to improve heart function and help you start living an overall healthy life.

 

Walking is known to improve cardiovascular health and well-being, ward off heart disease, lower blood pressure, and overall strengthen your heart. Older women in particular can lower their blood pressure by nearly 11 points in 24 weeks just by walking one to two miles a day.

 

Does walking Helps to Prevent Deadly Conditions?

We are all aware of some of the scariest, sometimes fatal conditions out there: heart disease, cancer, strokes, high blood pressure, dementia, and type 2 diabetes are some of them. A multitude of studies conducted have demonstrated that regular, brisk walking can help to reduce certain deadly conditions by as much as 40%. According to researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, women who walk 30 minutes a day or more can reduce their risk of having a stroke by 20-40% overall. Additionally, your risk of developing diabetes is decreased with nearly all physical activity, and walking is no exception. However, you don’t need to start walking the length of marathons to start living healthy—walking even as little as 10,000 steps a day can cut your risk of developing type 2 diabetes significantly.

 

Does walking May Help to Prevent Cancer?

Like many other health conditions, any kind of regular physical activity can help to prevent the development of cancer. However, there was an actual study done by the American Cancer Society that focused on the relationship between walking and breast cancer specifically, and found that women who walk an hour or more per day on average were 14% less likely to develop breast cancer than those who walked three or fewer hours per week. Like our previously mentioned health tips, this was true for both completely healthy people and for those who had pre-existing conditions that put them at higher risk for breast cancer, including those who were overweight or had genetic predispositions.

 

Does walking Can Lengthen Your Lifespan?

This one may seem like a gimmick, but there is actual, published research that shows that those who walk regularly—particularly older people—are 35% more likely to live eight or more years longer than those who do not walk regularly. For those who have underlying health conditions, that number increases to 45%. So, not only does walking promote wholesome living for the whole family, it can literally save your life. Additionally, a specific study conducted by I-Min Lee, a professor in the Department of Epidemiology at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, found that older women in particular who walked regularly lived longer than those who walked less or did not walk at all.

 

Does walking Strengthens Bones, Joints, and Muscles?

Regular walking gives you a healthy body and protects your joints by lubricating them and strengthening the muscles that surround them. It can stop the loss of bone mass for those who have osteoporosis and can actually prevent the risk of bone fractures caused by falls by as much as 40%. Walking may ease pain caused by arthritis, and several studies have found that walking five to six miles a week can prevent arthritis from forming at all. Walking is most beneficial to a person’s knees and hips, but it also tones leg and stomach muscles.

 

Does walking Can Help with Insomnia?

Although exercise as a whole doesn’t always cure insomnia, regular walking can often help it. According to the medical director at the Johns Hopkins Center for Sleep, regular walking can not only help you to fall asleep faster, but it can improve your overall sleep quality as well. Most studies show that the most beneficial way to walk to help relieve insomnia is to take a one-hour walk in the early morning hours, with benefits being seen the most in women between the ages of 50-75. However, regardless of age, walking for an hour early in the day has been shown to help insomnia across a multitude of sleep studies.

 

Does walking Boosts Your Immune System?

If you’re curious to know how to be healthier overall, you may enjoy knowing that walking boosts your immune system. Any time your heart rate and oxygen rate increase, waste products are eliminated faster and with more efficiency, which helps your body’s ability to heal. One study conducted on over 1,000 men and women found that those who walked a minimum of 20 minutes a day, every day, for at least five days a week, had 43% fewer sick days than those who walked less or not at all. Additionally, those who did get sick recovered faster and had milder symptoms.

 

Does walking Gives You Energy?

Walking helps you have energy to discover how to start a healthy lifestyle. Just like anything else that naturally elevates your heart and oxygen rates, regular walking can boost your energy levels in a way that doesn’t damage any other part of your body. Many studies show that choosing to take a brisk walk when you’re tired may actually be more helpful for your energy levels than drinking a cup of coffee—or consuming any source of caffeine—would. Walking also releases good hormones such as endorphins, which also works to boost energy levels and overall happiness.

 

Does walking Improves Brain Function?

In addition to giving you energy and boosting your mood, walking also helps to improve cognition, memory, and brain function. In one study conducted at the University of California on over 6,000 women aged 65 and up, researchers found that those women who walked more experienced less age-related memory decline. Women who walked at least two and a half miles per day only experienced a 17% decline in memory. When compared to the 25% decline that women who walked less than a half a mile per week—or even not at all—and these results are staggering.

 

Does walking Can Prevent Dementia & Alzheimer’s?

In addition to boosting memory, cognition, and overall brain function, spending more time walking has also of course been found to help prevent (or at least stave off) the development of dementia and Alzheimer’s. In a study conducted by the University of Virginia Health System in Charlottesville, older men who walked more than a quarter of a mile per day had half the incidences of dementia and Alzheimer’s than those who walked less than this. Any older adults who got in a minimum of 10,000 steps per day were shown to be 50% less likely to develop dementia or dementia-like symptoms, and even those who got fewer than 5,000 steps saw improvement in memory function.

 

Does walking Improves Balance & Coordination?

You’d be hard-pressed to find a physical activity that doesn’t improve your balance and coordination, but walking in particular is no exception. Walking helps to build lower-body strength and helps to strengthen muscles in your lower body as well, which is an important factor for achieving good balance. If you bring along a ball to kick around while you walk, swapping feet as you go, you can improve your balance and coordination even more.

 

Does walking Can Improve Your Mental Health?

Because of the endorphins it releases, walking can boost your mood and improve your overall mental health by reducing stress and tension in your body. Like most types of exercise, walking triggers the release of natural painkillers and delivers them throughout your body. A study conducted by California State University showed that the more steps people took per day, the better their overall moods were, and the less likely they were to develop depression.

 

What is the ideal Walking Technique?

An ideal walking technique would be, first and foremost, to walk faster, further, and more frequently, gradually increasing your speed and distance each time. You should maintain good posture, with your head up, neck and shoulders relaxed, and back straight. You should keep your stomach muscles tightened slightly, and walk with smooth strides, rolling your feet from heel to toe. A little swinging of the arms is okay, but you shouldn’t be aggressively pumping them as you go.

 

How to Plan Your Routine?

It’s always important to practice good safety habits by planning your walking routine. Having a specific routine can also help to keep you on track, because it becomes a part of your day that you come to expect (like any habit!) and you get to the point where you feel unfulfilled if you miss your daily walk. Always make sure to walk in places where there are no dangers or trip hazards, such as large branches or potholes. Walk slowly both at first and at the end as a cool down, and make sure you stretch before and after. Make sure you have a backup plan of somewhere to walk if there is poor weather occurring outside. Finally—and most importantly—vary the location where you walk, for your own safety.

 

How to get Good Walking Gear?

Of course, walking can actually cause problems if you do it incorrectly. Wearing the right walking gear is critical to your success. You will want to invest in high-quality shoes with proper arch support, and these may require a significant financial deposit. Wear comfortable, loose-fitting clothes that are bright or reflective if you plan to be walking in the dark. If you prefer to walk when the sun is high, remember to always use sunscreen, and wear a hat and sunglasses if it’s too bright.

 

How to staying Motivated?

Staying motivated to walk almost requires a lot more work than actually walking. And this is because we often set goals that are too high or unrealistic. It’s important to set realistic goals and to not overexert yourself. If possible, start small. Start by setting aside 30 minutes of physical activity per day. You can even break these up into smaller chunks, if that makes it easier.

 

Tracking your progress can also work wonders on your motivation level. Devices such as fitbits, apple watches, or even a walking journal can help you see how far you’ve come since your first day walking. Seeing the visible progress you’ve made can function as a great source of motivation.

 

Finally, some last tips: Set aside specific times for walks per week, so that it’s scheduled in and feels like a natural part of your day. If you have trouble staying motivated, consider joining a walking club or inviting a friend along on your journey. Listen to music or a podcast while walking. And, lastly, don’t let the missed days discourage you or trick you into giving up altogether. Tomorrow is a new day.

 

Conclusion

In conclusion, if you want to learn how to live healthy, the best fitness tips for life seem to come from just one hour of brisk walking per day, but benefits may still be reaped from less walking. In actuality, you should really shoot to get in as much walking as you are physically capable of doing each day, and try to push yourself to go just a bit farther than last time every time. When it comes to your health, whatever it is you’re scared of, walking likely holds the answer. So get out there and get moving!