Walking Enables A Healthier Life

Physical activity does not have to be strenuous and difficult.  Sometimes just walking is enough to ensure a healthier life. Have you ever wondered how walking affects your health? Walking in particular comes with a host of benefits.

• Helps in weight loss. For people who walked briskly for about an hour a day, the effects of weight-promoting genes were cut in half.

• Walking can reduce cravings and intake of a variety of sugary snacks.

• It reduces the risk of developing breast cancer. Researchers already know that any kind of physical activity blunts the risk of breast cancer.  And walking provided this protection even for women with breast cancer risk factors, such as being overweight or using supplemental hormones.

• Prevent or manage various conditions and reduce other chronic diseases such as heart disease, and stroke risk especially in women lowering high blood pressure, decreasing type 2 diabetes risk, improving varicose veins, speed up digestion.

• Improves heart health and cardiovascular fitness. This can be a great way to get aerobic activity and improve your heart health. Increase your heart rate a bit. You should be a little breathless but not completely out of breath.

• Increase lung capacity. When you exercise, your heart and lungs work harder to supply the additional oxygen your muscles demand. So just like exercise makes your muscles stronger, it also helps your lungs to get stronger.

• It eases joint pain.  Walking reduces arthritis-related pain and prevents arthritis from forming in the first place. Walking protects the joints — especially the knees and hips, by lubricating them and strengthening the muscles that support them.

• It boosts immunity. And if they did get sick, it was for a shorter duration, and their symptoms were milder.

• Prevents disability in old age.

There are many, many more benefits to walking. It can significantly improve your mental and emotional health, increase energy levels, improve your mood, cognition, memory,  sleep, balance, and coordination, and reduce stress and tension.
The faster, farther, and more frequently you walk, the greater the benefits.

If you don’t like walking alone, ask a friend or neighbor to join you. You might like listening to music while you walk. Try using an activity tracker, app, or pedometer to calculate steps and distance.