Simply said, walking is good for your health.
According to James N. Robinson, MD, a sports medicine doctor at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York City, walking affects various systems in the body, so it offers a lot of tremendous benefits.
Walking is regarded as a moderately vigorous aerobic activity, which means it works your cardiovascular system despite being low-impact. This is the case if you walk at a speed that allows you to chat but makes singing difficult.
Dr. Robinson advises people to walk at a pace that slightly increases their heart rate. Use the “speaking test” outlined above to determine whether you should be somewhat out of breath but not fully exhausted. “That’s a good sign that the walking you’re doing is improving your cardiovascular fitness,” he says.
Robinson advises aiming for 150 minutes of this kind of walking per week, spread out across several days (not all at once). According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans (PDF), people should engage in 150 minutes per week of moderate-intensity aerobic activity (or about 30 minutes, five days a week).
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that you divide it up into even smaller portions throughout the day (CDC). Take three 10-minute walks, for instance, throughout the day.
According to Robinson, walking strengthens your core, which is responsible for keeping you upright when you walk, as well as the muscles in your legs. Walking is also an aerobic activity.
Even while walking is a fantastic all-body workout, it’s still vital to have rest days. To lower the chance of damage, he suggests performing challenging walking workouts no more than five days per week. Rest days, though, don’t necessarily entail complete inactivity. Everyday light to moderate intensity walking is OK because it is good for your health to get your steps in. (More below about that.)
1. Walking Could Make You Live Longer
You can continue to walk well into your senior years. According to research published in JAMA Network Open in 2021, people who walked at least 7,000 steps per day had a 50 to 70 percent decreased chance of dying The study included more than 2,000 adults. Age, smoking history, body weight, alcohol consumption, food, and other behavioural and lifestyle characteristics were all taken into account by the researchers, along with other physiological indicators like cholesterol, fasting glucose, blood pressure, and use of various medications.
2. Walking can strengthen bones
Walking is a weight-bearing activity since you do it standing up and your bones support your weight, according to the Mayo Clinic, which means it may help maintain bone health and maybe lower the risk of osteoporosis. Moreover, he adds, walking strengthens your core, enhancing stability and balance to help prevent falls as you age.
3. Walking Improves Your Mood
Consider going for a walk when you’re feeling depressed. Do you recall the #stupidwalkchallenge craze? It works, and the walk need not be very far. In a 2018 study, young adults who engaged in a 10-minute session of fast walking reported feeling happier than those in the control group, who were told to sit instead. This was especially true when it came to emotions of exhaustion.
4. Walking Helps You Lose Weight
You don’t necessarily need to engage in a rigorous exercise regimen if you want to lose weight unless, of course, that’s your preferred kind of exercise.
5 Benefits of Walking for Your Health
