After doing research, I did decided to wake up a little earlier each day to walk. It makes me feel great. Beyond feeling great, walking also has real benefits. It can prevent certain diseases and sicknesses, and can even extend your life. Walking is free and can be done nearly anywhere on the planet. All you need is a pair of shoes and a little motivation each day.
Let’s review 7 benefits of walking and why I walk each morning.
1. Weight Loss
Losing weight has a multitude of benefits for your overall health. In fact, research shows that cutting 5 to 10% of your overall weight can improve your cardiovascular health, mental health, reduce diseases and certain cancers, raise your self-esteem, and help you sleep better.
Walking regularly helps you cut calories and lose weight. For every mile you walk, on average you will lose 100 calories. If you walk 1 mile each day, you’ll lose on average almost 1 pound per month.
2. Heart Strength
Walking 30 minutes a day and five days per week can strengthen your heart and reduce your risk of heart disease by nearly 19% according to a study. This is an incredibly important benefit of walking because heart disease is currently the number one killer in the United States according to the CDC.
3. Join Paint Relief
Most people have experienced joint pain. Counterintuitively, joint pain can make a person feel like they need to move less. However, walking and other movements can actually relieve joint pain in your knees, hips, and other joints. According to Harvard, walking can even prevent arthritis.
4. Immune Booster
Our immune system keeps us healthy from flu and other things that make us sick. Walking is a major immune booster according to one study that followed 1000 adults during a flu season. For individuals who walked at a normal pace for 30 to 45 minutes per day, they had on average 43% fewer sick days than individuals who didn’t walk each day. If they did get sick, their symptoms were also less severe than non-walkers.
5. Increased Energy
A major benefit of walking in the morning is the increase in energy you can experience. One study suggests that walking can be more advantageous than a cup of coffee for waking sleep deprived women up.
6. Improved Mental Health
Our mental health is so important, especially since Covid-19. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, exercise like walking can improve your mental health by reducing anxiety, negative mood, and depression.
7. Extend Your Life
Who doesn’t want to extend how long they live? Researchers found that walking at a quickened pace reduces overall risk of death by 24%.
Who Can Benefit from Walking?
We can all stand to benefit from walking each day! However, some groups might get even more benefits from walking, such as:
- Individuals who are overweight
- High-stress individuals, such as entrepreneurs or lawyers
- Individuals with join pain or arthritis
Final Thoughts on Walking Your Way Into Good Health
Thank you for reading this article on the benefits of walking. I hope that you’re inspired to add walking into your daily schedule to experience the amazing benefits mentioned above. Walking is transformational and has been an important activity for me to reduce stress at my immigration law firm, be more mentally available for my family, and to be more thankful each day.