Walking is one of the easiest exercises to improve your physical and mental health. Walking everyday, even for 20-30 minutes, can tremendously help your overall wellbeing. It is a comparatively low effort cardiovascular exercise.
Walking has several benefits on our health. It doesn’t need any gym equipment or too much time and effort. It is easily doable exercise with huge benefits.
Let’s see what great benefits regular walking has to offer –
PHYSICAL BENEFITS :
- Walking everyday helps the condition of our heart. It maintains balance in our blood pressure and blood cholesterol levels. It reduces risks of stroke and other heart related problems.
- Regularly walking helps control blood sugar levels. That’s why, those who walk regularly have a lower risk of having diabetes and related diseases.
- Walking boosts our immune system. It saves us from various diseases.It also helps control our breathing,thus improving our respiratory health.
- Walking enhances our energy levels. It is suggested to take a quick walk if you’re feeling unmotivated or lethargic. Taking a walk improves our energy levels by delivering oxygen throughout the body.
- Walking improves our sleep. Walking helps with our sleep quality and thus improves our natural circadian rhythm.
- Walking helps to lose weight. Walking requires engaging our full body. It burns a lot of calories. The faster you’ll walk the more calories you can burn. It helps us lose belly fat and overall helps maintain a healthy weight.
- Walking helps relieve joint pain. It also helps ease foot pain from Arthritis. Walking helps strengthen bones.
MENTAL AND EMOTIONAL BENEFITS :
Walking releases a feel-good hormone called “Endorphins”, a natural stress reliever which makes us happy. Thus walking improves our mental health.
- Walking improves our mood. Taking a quick walk when you’re feeling low, will help you feel a lot better.
- Walking reduces stress and anxiety levels. Walking releases stress reliever neurotransmitters which helps control our anxiety levels.
- Walking can save us from chronic mental illness like depression. By improving our mood,it helps lower our tension and sadness.
- Walking reduces tiredness. By increasing our energy levels,it helps us become more mentally prepared. It helps us with mental alertness,focus and attention.
- Walking keeps our mind calm. When we take a break from our daily hustle and take a walk in nature, it helps us calm our nerves. It makes us more calm and composed.
- Walking helps us control our impulsive behavior and reaction. By releasing feel-good hormones, walking helps us with controlling our anger and aggressiveness. It helps build positive emotions.
- Walking can give you a creativity burst. A Stanford university research has shown that walking can help improve one’s creative output by almost up to 60%. Walking or other activities puts our brain functions to work. Thus creative thinking is provoked.
- Walking helps our critical thinking. Walking regularly promotes new connections in our brain cells. It engages various parts of our brain to work thus it helps with our thinking.
We get clearance in our thinking and be able to see and understand things at an improved level.
If you’re someone who can’t get yourself to exercise regularly, just walking can be very beneficial for you. Even walking for some time is better than not moving at all.
So, walk your way to good health and a better life.
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Writer:
Ramisa Shamrin Chowdhury
Intern, Content Writing Department, YSSE.