The Physical and Mental Benefits of Walking

I am twenty years old, and I neither own a car nor typically find myself inside of one. If I have anywhere I want or need to be, I will bike, jog, or walk to get there, walking being my usual choice for personal ease and enjoyment. And as someone who both walks for recreation and also as a primary means of transportation, I feel confident in saying that it is an activity that holds many all around benefits.

Of course, as a light exercise, there are numerous health benefits to sustained periods spent walking on a regular basis. It can help to lower blood pressure, increase muscle and bone strength to reduce chances of developing arthritis and osteoporosis, lower the risk for heart disease, certain types of cancer, and type II diabetes, maintain one's weight, and increase one's life expectancy. Thirty to sixty minutes of walking, five days out of the week, can greatly improve one's physical health and fitness, especially compared to doing no exercise at all. Walking is a great exercise for people of all different ages and fitness levels, because it is generally easy even for those who are less fit, is low-impact and unlikely to run any risk for overstraining or injuring oneself, and requires no cost or equipment to do as often or whenever one would like.

But walking is a wonderful activity for even more than all of these physical benefits, because it is also beneficial for one's mental health. Like any exercise, the endorphins it releases provide good feelings, improve one's mood, and help alleviate depression. And just being outside, at least for those without outdoor allergies, tends to have an uplifting effect on one's spirits. Going for a walk is a great way of relieving frustrations, getting out of one's normal environment for awhile, letting body and thought wander freely away from one's problems to come back with a fresh perspective. Walking is an easy and mostly thoughtless activity that offers free time for the mind in a way that many people's daily rush denies them, with the fresh air and ever changing scenery serving as a good backdrop to one's thoughts.

And even more, walking can offer a healthy change in one's perspective as well. It provides the opportunity to familiarize oneself with their local area in a way that one never will by car. At a slower pace, there's the chance to truly absorb one's surroundings, to notice more than the traffic, the street lights, and the street signs, but to actually take in the houses, the yards, the flora and fauna, the slope of the land, a world of sights, sounds, and smells that just goes by in a blur when driving past in a car. And when walking as transportation, as a means of getting where one needs to go, it creates a total change in one's sense of distance and the reality of the outdoors. When getting everywhere by car, one travels from place to place while hardly actually moving, always in a confined and familiar environment, from one's home, to one's vehicle, to one's work. Driving from place to place makes everywhere you go feel like an isolated island, while walking gives a feeling of substance to all of the "in-between", reminds one of the world they are part of beyond the artificial one that their mind is stuck in most all of the day. Walking where I need to go makes the world become more real to me. There's something empowering about knowing you can get where you need to go with nothing but your own two feet, and something properly humbling about experiencing the weather in all its pleasantness and unpleasantness along the way.

I recommend to anyone who drives everywhere and has walking as an option to them, to try just for a day walking everywhere they need or want to go. I guarantee it will be a worthwhile experience. And it may well become a first step toward a change to one's lifestyle, a change for a healthier body, a more relaxed mind, and a whole new perspective.

Sources:

Tommy Boone, Benefits of Walking, Howstuffworks

Mayo Clinic Staff, Walking for fitness: How to trim your waistline, improve your health, MayoClinic.com

Wendy Bumgardner, Walking for your Mind and Spirit, About.com