Walking is a fundamental human function with different roles. First, walking can help clear your mind, calm you down, and pace your thoughts. This is also a wonderful form of exercise which can help you shed off unwanted weight, tone your legs, improve lung ventilation, and make you healthier as a whole. This is also proven to reduce risks of heart diseases. Walking can temporarily quicken heart rate, increase blood circulation throughout the body, and bring more oxygen to the rest of the organs. Walking can also improve the ability of the lungs to take in oxygen from air, lower blood pressure, and enhance blood sugar and cholesterol levels.
Walking has been proven to help slow down the process of aging, and this can work whether you start early or later on in your life. This is a low impact activity that doesn’t need any special skills or equipment. On top of that, you can do this any time of the day at a pace you choose yourself. Moreover, you can indulge in a calming walk with no need to worry about those risks often associated with other vigorous types of exercise.
Every time you walk, you carry your body weight. This is known as weight-beating. Some of its best benefits include the following:
- Increases lung and heart fitness
- Reduces risks of cardiovascular diseases
- Improves blood lipid profile
- Improves management of diabetes, joint and muscular stiffness, and hypertension
- Reduces body fat
- Increases muscle strength
In order to get all the benefits of walking for heart health, it is important to walk for a minimum of 30 minutes a day as briskly as possible. When you speak of briskly, this means that you will still be able to walk but you might be slightly puffing. This doesn’t need to be nonstop. Having three 10-minute walks per day can be effective. You can lower blood pressure and make your heart stronger by walking on a regular basis.
You can try to incorporate walking into your everyday routine through the following:
- Take the stairs and avoid using the elevator
- Walk and don’t drive to local shops
- Get off public transport one or two stops earlier and walk to your destination
- Park your car further from your set destination
- Walk your kids to school
As mentioned earlier, regular walking can trigger anti-aging processes and can also help repair your old DNA. For you to stay motivated, you can also work with your coworkers and friends at lunch, walk your dog, be a part of a walking club, or use a pedometer or phone app to measure the number of steps you make every day and increase it gradually. The suggested figure is, to begin with, 2,000 steps then work towards a goal of 5,000 steps. Once you reached your desired goal, you can just maintain your level of fitness or set the goal of 10,000 steps.
A little walking is considered good but more is much better. Just remember to stay safe every time you walk. This way, you can enjoy its benefits to the fullest.
