Walking for Health

The journey of 1000 miles begins with a single step - Confucius. By taking that single step, you will not only be beginning the journey of 1000 miles but you will also be on your freeway to better health.

Walking is natural for the human body and 30 minutes a day can confer great health benefits, such as reducing your risk of cardiovascular diseases, helping you to either maintain or lose weight, improving your fitness and improving your psychological well-being, including alleviating some symptoms of depression or anxiety that you might be feeling.

The physical benefits of walking

Walking will confer many physical benefits onto the walker, all of which may extend your lifespan and improve your quality of life. Specifically walking has been found to lead to improvements in physical health, mental health and the holy grail for many women and men - weight loss. The Heart Foundation in Australia recommends that for optimum health all adults walk for 30 minutes at a moderate pace on most days of the week. Moderate pace means that you are putting in some effort but you are not huffing or puffing.

Physical Health

Walking can decrease your risk of having a heart attack or stroke, improve your fitness which lets you have more energy throughout your day, decrease your risk of getting Type II Diabetes (or improve your blood sugar controls if you currently have Type II Diabetes), reduce high blood pressure,

Mental Health

Regular moderate paced walking can improve your psychological well-being which improves your ability to handle the stresses of day to day living. If you are currently experiencing an episode of depression or anxiety, walking and physical activity have been found to alleviate some of the symptoms.

Weight Loss

As part of a lifestyle change (changing your food choices or portion sizes) walking can assist you to either maintain weight or lose weight. Walking for weight loss requires that you walk for longer than 30 minutes daily.

How do I gain the health benefits from walking?

The biggest hurdle you have to overcome is the one in your mind - the internal negative chatterbox that tells you that walking won't help, that you're too busy or too depressed to walk, etc, etc. You know the chatterbox I'm talking about and what he/she/it says to you.

Make a plan to become a walker - set yourself some goals related to walking. You know your own fitness level and the first goal you might set is to walk for 5 minutes each day for the next 2 weeks. If you have never set goals before use the principle of SMART goals. Smart goals are specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely. Using the example above the "walk for 5 minutes each day" is specific, 5 minutes each day for the next 2 weeks is measurable, attainable, realistic and timely. An unrealistic goal would be to start from a base of no fitness and decide you are going to compete in a 20 kilometre marathon walk in a week.

To assist your goals, draw yourself a grid with the days of the week on the top and your goal down the side. Each day that you achieve your goal, give yourself a tick, a star or a smiley face, whatever will motivate you. At the end of your time frame (2 weeks in the example) have a picture of a reward you will give yourself if you achieve your goal, for example, a massage, a new pair of walking shoes, whatever you would like to treat yourself with. You can also use this time to review your achievement and decide whether you would like to increase the amount of walking or keep it at the same level for another period. Remember it takes 4 to 6 weeks to make something habitual so keep walking and keep rewarding yourself.

Remember also to stretch at the start and end of each of your walking activities. Nothing is worse than starting a new fitness program and stopping after 2 days because you've strained a muscle.

So go on - take that first step of the 1000 mile journey and find the positive health benefits of walking.