Reviewed by: Tim Pittorino, BHSC
Walking is one of the easiest ways to move our body daily – anytime, anywhere. And unlike many other forms of exercise, walking has pretty much no side effects! But do you know just how good walking is for your health?
Here are 10 benefits of walking that you may not have expected:
Weight Management
It may be obvious that high intensity cardio can help with losing and maintaining a healthy weight. But exercise doesn’t need to be over the top with every session to support weight management.
Walking is the perfect activity to compliment other forms of training. Even a 20 minute power walk is enough to pump up the heart rate and help to keep your metabolism firing.
Manage/Prevent Conditions
Many common conditions such as diabetes, heart and kidney disease can be prevented with regular walking. Not only are there countless types of illnesses that can be avoided with light daily exercise like walking, but the aging process can also slow down… perfect!
Strengthens Bones & Muscles
Walking is a good way to cultivate more muscle growth in your legs and butt, it strengthens your bones and by paying attention to HOW you walk, your posture can dramatically improve.
Brain Booster
There are so many amazing gifts bestowed on brain health through the effects of walking. It can get your creative juices flowing, promote a blissful feeling with the release of endorphins and reduce stress levels. You’ll also promote growth of the memory hub, which sharpens your information retention and with the increases in blood flow to the brain, this can prevent conditions such as Alzheimer’s.
Really Regular
Gastric mobility can significantly improve with walking. The abdominal muscles can encourage movement in the GI system, assisting in better, more frequent bathroom visits.
Improves Lungs
Going for a walk increases your breathing rate and contributes to a greater lung capacity. This promotes oxygen to travel faster through the bloodstream, boosts energy levels and eliminating waste products and healing. Greater lung capacity also promotes heart health, lower blood pressure and better energy levels.
Eye Health
By lowering the pressure to the eyes through regular moderate walking exercise, this can aid in lowering the risk of glaucoma.
Circulation & Veins
Just as enhanced blood flow can make for better breathing and while it’s a good idea to find a healthy balance with how much exercise to do if you suffer with varicose veins, regular walking can work wonders. Swelling of the legs is often due to inactivity, so keep moving to cultivate knockout pins!
Vitamin D Exposure
A superb way to get a hit of vitamin D is walking outside! Vitamin D has many of it’s own properties with benefits like fighting disease, reducing depression and assisting weight loss, so a daily dose of this is a very good thing.
Better/Deeper Sleep
With the additional effects of sharpened mental clarity, cognitive function and happy hormones being produced, this can correlate to a lowering of cortisol, which in turn supports more restful sleeping patterns.
Also read: These 5 Daily Habits Can Prolong Your Life
