How Can Walking Help You?

Walking is one of the most effective ways to maintain your overall health. Just 30-40 minutes of walking can improve your cardiovascular condition and muscle strength. It can also boost your immunity and provide protection against multiple diseases such as osteoporosis and type 2 diabetes. Regular walking also improves your cognitive capacity. Experts opine walking should be a part and parcel of your workout regime. So let us look into how walking can help us.

Regular and systematic walking has multiple benefits. It keeps you in shape, controls your weight, and develops immunity against multiple diseases. Let us look at the different benefits of walking and how it can help us:

It has been mentioned in different healthcare literature that walking is extremely beneficial for cardiac health.⁽¹⁾ It can help to keep heart diseases at bay and can improve your heartbeat rate, reduce your blood pressure levels, and also strengthen your overall cardiac condition as a whole. Walking is considered to be one of the best ways through which women in their menopause phase can lower their increased blood pressure levels.⁽²⁾

Individuals suffering from osteoporosis often face the problem of bone mass loss over time. Doctors and specialists have pointed out that walking is a form of exercise that can reduce the loss of bone mass as a process. This particular approach can be extremely helpful for women in their post-menopause phase, who face an increased risk of hip fractures due to the lower mass of their bones.^{(2, 3)}

Research into the domain has revealed that people in their mid-50s and early 60s, who follow a regular regime of walking often experience a better lifespan as compared to their counterparts who have a more sedentary lifestyle. Nearly 45% of such active people face a lesser number of health-oriented problems.⁽²⁾

Walking as a form of physical activity helps to release hormones like serotonin and endorphins that create a feel-good effect in an individual. This is why we often feel lightheartedness and a happy mood after we come back from a walk. Experts have clearly pointed out that regular walking can be extremely good for those people who are suffering from conditions like anxiety and depression.⁽⁴⁾

Obesity is one of the biggest healthcare problems faced by men, women, and children of various age groups across the world. Obesity is the single root cause that can lead to many other dreaded diseases and health hazards. Various researches and statements of doctors and medical experts have clearly opined that walking is one of the best ways through which you can cut down on your weight and can effectively burn your body fat. In fact, walking is being considered to be the single most effective way through which you can get rid of fat in some of the most stubborn parts of your body. Walking can help you to come back into shape, look years younger and feel even better about yourself.⁽⁵⁾

Walking not only improves your body shape but can also improve the strength of your muscles. Walking regularly can tone down your abdominal muscles and also your leg muscles. Even your arm muscles can look much leaner and fitter due to regular walking. A person who walks for at least 30 minutes a day can experience a better range of motion and can improve the strength of his bone joints considerably.⁽²⁾

Walking as a form of exercise improves your blood circulation by a huge margin. This brings a host of benefits to your body as a whole. One of these benefits happens to be a healthier, supple, and glowing skin. Better circulation of blood helps to bring renewed glow and tight skin which will obviously give you a much younger feel.^{(3, 5)} Further, walking helps you to sweat more, which eventually ends up cleaning your skin pores giving you fresher and healthier skin.

Research shows that 15-minutes of brisk walking every day remarkably reduces the craving for chocolates and other types of sweets. In the long run, the latest research works suggest, the craving for sugary snacks is also reduced.⁽¹⁾

The health benefits that we discussed so far which you can enjoy through regular routine walking, are just a few out of a really long and exhaustive list. In short, it can be said that walking as a form of physical exercise is a complete way of taking care of your entire body in its various context and aspects.

References:

Also Read:

• Why It Is Healthy To Start Walking Barefoot?
• What Can Cause Loss of Balance While Walking?
• What are the Benefits of Walking After Dinner?
• Benefits of Walking an Hour a Day
• What Can Cause Feeling Off-balance When Walking?
• Does Walking Flatten Your Stomach?
• Walking Benefits: Reduce the Risk of Diabetes and High Blood Pressure with Walking
• Can Walking Raise Body Temperature?