I can like to say this, walking is about the world's most overlooked and highly underrated kind of exercise. Walking everyday helps our lives in so many discrete ways. As a matter of fact, research has shown that the benefits of walking and moderate physical activity for at least 30 minutes a day can help you:
* It lowers disease risk:
As well as coronary heart disease, a walking habit can slash your risk of developing type 2 diabetes, asthma and some cancers. A study in the British Medical Journal showed taking more steps every day can help ward off diabetes. And according to the charity Walking For Health, regular exercise such as walking could reduce risk by up to 60 percent. Those of us who are active have around a 20 per cent lower risk of developing cancer of the colon, breast and womb than those least active.
* It’s good for your brain.
Walking does much more than work the area underneath your neck. It also has extensive cognitive benefits, improving memory and academic performance in preadolescents (especially those who need it most), and (when done outdoors) boosting creativity in the young and healthy. The farther an older person can walk in six minutes, the better he or she performs on memory and logic tests; folks who perform poorly on the walking test tend to have reduced grey matter volume in certain sections of their brains. Aristotle’s famed tendency to walk as he taught students suddenly makes sense.
* It helps prevent osteoporosis:
Walking counts as a weight-bearing activity. It stimulates and strengthens bones, increasing their density – really important, especially for women. It also helps maintain healthy joints so may help stave off conditions such as arthritis.
* It’s well tolerated by people with arthritis (and could even improve their condition):
Arthritis patients have it tough on the exercise front. They won’t get any better avoiding exercise, but exercise tends to hurt. What to do? Walk. Walking is gentle, particularly if you perform it with proper form. And one study even found that walking (and weight lifting) improves balance in older adults with osteoarthritis.
* Boost your immune system function:
Several lines of evidence point to the benefits of walking on the immune system. First, a “mere” 30 minute walk increases killer T-cells and other markers of immune function. Second, among free-living Japanese elderly, higher daily step counts correlate with improved mucosal immunity. Finally, among postmenopausal women involved in a walking training program, the normally deleterious immune effects associated with menopause were ameliorated.
* It improves glycemic control, especially after meals:
Just 15 minutes of walking after eating improved the blood glucose control in older people with poor glucose tolerance. Try to keep the walk as close to the meal as possible to aid in weight loss.
* It improves triglyceride levels and lowers blood pressure, especially after meals:
Whether short (ten 3-minute bouts of brisk walking) or longer (one 30-minute bout of brisk walking), briskly walking after a meal lowers postprandial blood pressure and triglyceride levels.
* It can help prevent dementia:
Dementia (long term loss of thinking ability) affects one in 14 people over 65 and one in six over 80. We know being active has a protective effect on brain function and regular exercise reduces dementia risk by up to 40 percent. And, according to Age UK, older people who walk six miles or more per week could avoid brain shrinkage and so preserve memory as the years pass.
* Live longer if you do it briskly (or at least presages a longerlife, if not causes it):
A recent study of over 7000 male and 31000 female recreational walkers found that walking intensity predicted mortality risk. Those who walked the fastest tended to die the least. It’s important to note that this wasn’t an interventional study where walkers were coached to walk faster; this was just looking at the relationship between natural walking speed and mortality risk, so naturally slow walkers who resolve to increase their speed may not see the same relationship – but it certainly can’t hurt!
We walk more than 30 minutes everyday. If 30 minutes of walk daily can do so much for us, how much more the countless number of minutes we walk everyday, every month, every year. So, the next time you're taking a walk or you are on the walk, do it with the style it actually deserves.
REFERENCES:
MARK'S DAILY APPLE
TESCO living
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