Posted on May 13, 2020 by Jenny Cromack

Walking yourself to a better you!

Walking is an exercise that fits all, as well as being safe, and pretty much easy to do for almost everyone! The benefits of walking are that you can do it from being a child, with your child or with your expected child!  Walking is a form of exercise that can be completed as a family, a hobby, or a form of travel! Since going into lockdown, in the UK over 55% of Brits are walking more for exercise than they previously did. Brisk walking for just 30 minutes a day is a good way of improving your fitness levels and lowering the risk of certain diseases.

Physical Benefits of Walking

  • Improve your cardiovascular fitness levels
  • Decreased risk of heart disease and stroke
  • Improve lower body strength and endurance
  • Maintaining a healthy blood pressure, or if you have high blood pressure, helping to lower this.
  • Helping with the management of diabetes

Regular walking has many positive effects on your overall wellbeing and fitness. Throughout many studies, they have shown and displayed the benefits of walking and the association between reductions in anxiety.

Similar to this, psychological benefits have also been shown to improve such as mood, attentional function and again, overall wellbeing when completing a moderate amount of walking.

So apart from the fitness side, walking is actually an opportunity for many people to improve their mental wellbeing. Whether that’s to escape from their daily routine, regular life, simply lift their spirits by getting outside or even just to remove themselves from a stressful situation. Using walking to improve your mental wellbeing will allow you to re-energise and engage with your surroundings.

The Psychological Benefits of Walking

  • Improved mood, self-esteem and self-perception
  • Reduced depression – physically active people have a 30% reduced risk of becoming depressed.
  • Reduced anxiety and stress
  • Improved sleep patterns and sleep quality
  • Improved cognitive function for a sharper mind and thinking

Now is the perfect time to go on a daily walk or two! Walking can purely be done for the enjoyment, but if you are looking to work on your physical fitness then why not monitor your progress and see if your walking fitness improves. Try to challenge yourself that little but more by either extending your regular walk or doing the same route but a little faster.

Taking care of our wellbeing includes looking after yourself on the inside and outside! For ‘us’ to be healthy our minds also need to be healthy! Next time you go for a walk, take more notice of your surroundings, what types of trees you can see, listen for birdsong, look at the blossom on the tree. Allow that walk to be your daily escape of reality, allowing you to recharge your batteries and keep smashing the day!