The Health Benefits Of Walking Daily

The health benefits of walking daily are incredible. You can get so much out of such a small investment of your money and time. Walking for only thirty minutes each day can increase your metabolism, improve your circulation and help prevent cancer. There isn’t anything that you can buy that will replace the health benefits of walking daily. Our bodies were meant to move, but we have gotten into the habit of allowing them to stay stagnant

Fitness Does Not Have to Be Complicated

Remember the first time Oprah decided to lose the weight. She did it by walking! Taking a stroll at lunch time and after work. She had tons of people on board with walking. Of course, her life got busy again and she stopped, but the simple act of walking helped her to reduce her weight.

Walking is the simplest exercise that there is for a human being. We all learn how to do it as toddlers and it is an exercise that we can take with us into old age if we remember to do it each day. The problem becomes when people don’t move enough each day, they start to accumulate health problems that movement can address. Their immune systems become sluggish and they don’t want to move anymore.

Health Benefits of Walking 30 Minutes Per Day

Walking for just thirty minutes can have a profound impact on your overall day.

Walking for thirty minutes per day can improve your mood and increase your creativity. At California State University in Long Beach, they conducted a study which demonstrated that the more steps people took during the day, the better their moods were. This is due to the fact that walking releases natural painkilling endorphins to the body. This is an emotional benefit of exercise!

Walking for just thirty minutes per day increases the demand on the heart and strengthens it. 

Thirty minutes of walking per day can help you to lose weight, which in turn will reduce your risk of chronic disease. The motion of walking increases peristalsis and improves your digestion. Due to the fact that your leg muscles are contracting, your circulation is improving.

Walking also helps to loosen up stiff joints. Joints do not have a direct blood supply. They get their nutrition from synovial fluid that circulates when we move. The impact that follows movement or compression, such as walking, compresses the cartilage, which brings oxygen and nutrients into the area. When you don’t walk, the joints become deprived of the blood supply, which can speed up deterioration.

Because walking is a weight bearing activity, it increases your bone density. Michael A. Schwartz, MD claims that it can help to halt the loss of bone mass for those with osteoporosis. Additionally, a Brigham and Women’s Hosptial study done in Boston discovered that thirty minutes of walking each day decreased the risk of hip fractures by forty percent.

Walking for just thirty minutes per day can increase the number of immune cells in your body, according to a study done by the Appalachian State University in North Carolina. Over time, this can have a wonderful impact on your body’s ability to fight disease. Specifically, walking at least twenty minutes per day can reduce the risk of getting sick by almost 43%.

Want to Prevent Cancer – Get Walking!

In 2012, at Harvard University, a Women’s Health Study examined walking for one to three hours per week. It discovered that walking for one to three hours per week reduces the risk of death from uterine and breast cancer by up to 19%! As the women pushed themselves a bit more and increased their walking efforts to three to five hours a week, they reduced the risk of breast cancer and uterine cancer to about 54%!

The American Cancer Society published a study in the journal, Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention discovered that walking up to seven hours per week reduces the risk of breast cancer itself by fourteen percent. This study was conducted over twenty years with a very large group of 73,600, which makes the study results even more credible.

 

Walking Can Boost Your Brain Function

Because walking helps to improve circulation, it brings fresh blood and vital nutrients to the brain. As you institute a regimen of walking, you will start to notice more clarity in your thoughts and a greater ability to focus. You may even reduce your incidences of headaches as well.

Exercise improves brain function and specifically memory function.  In 2011, a study was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, which showed that walking for forty minutes at a time for three times per week could increase the volume of the hippocampubs by 2%. This is fairly significant. In 2014, another study was presented during the  American Association for the Advancement of Science, which found that regular brisk walks can slow down the shrinking of the brain and the failing mental skills that come with old age. This study was conducted on women and men between the ages of 60 to 80. It conculded that taking a short walk three times per week increased the size of the brain that is linked to memory and planning.

Time to Get Walking

With all the health benefits of walking everyday, isn’t it time that you scheduled it into your day to ensure that you are healthier and preventing disease? I’ve found that the best thing to do is keep it in my schedule at a set time to make sure that I do it. Any additional walking throughout the day is just additional benefits! For me, walking during the early morning hours helps me to get my mind focus on the tasks that I need to accomplish that day. It puts me in a great mood to tackle the day and helps me to concentrate. Whether you are taking a walk in the park or avoiding the cold and rain and doing some treadmill walking, you have free access to these wonderful health benefits when you consistently put in the effort to walk for thirty minutes per day! I have even constructed a treadmill desk workstation with an inexpensive confidence treadmill to ensure that I get some walking while I work!

 

 

 

 

2 thoughts on “The Health Benefits Of Walking Daily”

  1. Hi there
    I really like walking a lot. I didn’t know how much health benefits I receive by walking back and forth to my workplace.
    Is walking while working healthy too? Like if I work on a farm and have to walk a lot all day long.
    Thanks for the info

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