Benefits Of Walking

Many of us spend all day rushing around. After our morning coffee and whatever food-like substance we choose to throw into our bodies, it appears to be a race through the work day until our head hits the pillow, and we start the next day all over again.

This is not conducive to good health and lead to inefficient work days. The questions remain: How much time do we really pay attention to our bodies during the day? Do we really give our bodies what they need to work at their best? Often the answer is no.

Our bodies were made for mobility; not to be sitting cramped in an office cubicle, or a subway train, a cab, a bus, our car, and so on...you get the idea. Yet, we spend most of the work day in a position that does not give benefit to our system.

As schedules become more packed it is almost impossible to give our body the resources it needs to work well. One of the most important tools that provides benefit for our system is movement. The easiest way to achieve this is by walking.

Walking is a form of exercise that everyone can do, and provides a huge benefit to your overall health and well-being. Despite the frenzied schedule, you do have time for walking. You can take a walk in the mornings if you park a little farther away from work. This will also benefit your mind as it will give it time to process and relax.

Also instead of sitting in the lunch room to have coffee during your break, go walking to the nearest coffee shop. If your office building has stairs, try walking up and down the stairs to get to your office, rather than taking the elevator. Even taking a break to walk around your office a few times a day, rather than being stagnant, will benefit your health.

There are many different benefits to walking, and it is such a low-intensity form of exercise it will not hinder those that have many physical issues. To begin with, walking does burn calories, and so if your schedule does not allow you to work out every day, going walking at some point during your day will provide a huge benefit to your health and will help support your body's activity. Remember that lack of exercise leads to a deterioration in health, and your most valuable asset is your health.

In addition walking helps disease prevention and in turn provides benefit to your overall health. Studies show that walking regularly reduces the risk of diabetes, heart disease, and various forms of cancer.

To keep track of your walking you can purchase a pedometer. This device will count your steps and help you keep track of how far you've gone during your work day. Even just going around 2,000 steps, or around a mile per day, helps increase your physical activity by almost 20%.

Walking also helps stave off such diseases as dementia. A study done with around 20,000 women in their 70's and 80's, compared those who walked about 1.5 miles a day and those who didn't. The women who were avid walkers on a daily basis were stated to have better thinking abilities than those that did not walk regularly.

Making it a goal of walking 10,000 steps a day, will greatly reduce your risk for disease, will cause you to lose weight, and will greatly reduce your stress levels. You can even get co-workers to join in by starting a walking program at work.

Pedometers can also be used at work to see who can get the most steps in a specific period of time! Remember that exercise is beneficial, and can also be fun. Your healthy future started yesterday, so its time to start walking today!