Daily walking is one of the most effective ways to stay healthy and active, yet many people ignore it in favor of fancier forms of exercise. However, walking can improve your physical and mental health and is a free, convenient activity that you can do almost anywhere.
Because walking is a low-impact, moderate-intensity exercise, it can be performed by people of all ages and fitness levels. It requires no special skills, equipment, or gym membership, and can easily fit into most people’s daily lives.
Ideally, you should walk around solar noon, since daylight saving time is from 12:30 noon to 1:30 pm due to the offset in the time system. Timing your walk around this time can give you the added benefit of UVB and near-infrared solar radiation.
For the past ten years or so, my routine has been to walk barefoot on the beach for about 45 minutes to an hour and a half. I can probably do this more than 95% of the time. While this is obviously not possible for many people, I have seen many people take action so that they can participate in this healthy practice. However, most of the benefits are gained by walking at solar noon. Being barefoot on the beach is just the icing on the cake.
What can a daily walk do for you?
Blue zones are areas of the world where people tend to live unusually long lives and where centenarians are concentrated. Instructively, residents in these areas, including Okinawa, Japan; Sardinia, Italy; Nicoya, Costa Rica; Ikaria, Greece; and Loma Linda, California, engage in physical activity, including regular walks.1
“Regular physical activity, including walking, is an essential aspect of a healthy lifestyle and is associated with many health benefits, particularly in the context of healthy aging and blue zone longevity,” the researchers wrote in the journal GeroScience. .”2
Their review found that walking is a powerful anti-aging intervention that can reduce the risk of age-related chronic diseases such as heart disease, hypertension, type 2 diabetes and cancer, while relieving pain and improving function in musculoskeletal disorders.
Other benefits of walking include improved sleep and increased resilience, but perhaps the most shocking is their discovery that simple walking may help reverse the underlying cellular and molecular mechanisms of aging.3
Regular exercise, including something as simple as walking, can rejuvenate your mitochondria. Exercise promotes the production of new mitochondria and helps existing ones work better, producing more energy more efficiently. If you don’t take steps to protect your mitochondrial health, your mitochondria may become damaged and produce less energy as you age.4
This can lead to muscle weakness, heart problems, and less efficient blood flow to the brain, and damaged mitochondria can produce harmful byproducts that make these problems worse. “While in-depth research on the effects of walking on mitochondrial function is limited, preliminary studies suggest that walking interventions have favorable effects on mitochondrial function,” the scientists explained.5
For example, one study found that regular low-intensity walking significantly improved mitochondrial health in people with impaired glucose tolerance.6 After participants embarked on a four-month walking program, researchers observed increased expression of mitochondria-related genes in their skeletal muscles.
These genes are involved in creating new mitochondria and enhancing their function. Essentially, walking encourages the body to produce more, better-performing mitochondria in the muscles.7
Walking is good for the body and mind
Like many forms of exercise, walking has profound physical and mental benefits. In its initiative to promote walking, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states, “A bout of moderate to vigorous physical activity can improve sleep, memory, and the ability to think and learn. It can also reduce symptoms of anxiety.”8
In fact, walking has a therapeutic effect that speaks to us in a fundamental way. Author Ferris Jabr wrote in The New Yorker:9,10
“What is it about walking, in particular, that makes it so great for thinking and writing? The answer starts with changes in our chemistry. When we walk, the heart beats faster, and more blood and oxygen circulate instead of just to the heart. “Many experiments have shown that people perform better on tests of memory and attention after or during exercise, even very slight movements.
Regular walking also promotes new connections between brain cells, avoids the shrinkage of brain tissue that occurs with age, increases the size of the hippocampus (an area of the brain critical for memory), and increases the levels of molecules that stimulate the brain. The growth of new neurons and the transmission of messages between them. “
Walking outdoors, especially in the woods, may have more significant psychological benefits, including a reduction in negative mood and feelings of depression, tension, anxiety, anger, fatigue, and confusion, and an increase in positive mood and energy.11
Meanwhile, Deborah Grayson Riegel, a professor of leadership communication at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, wrote in the Harvard Business Review: “Charles Darwin, Friedrich Nietzsche, William Wordsworth and Aristotle were both obsessive walkers who used the rhythm of walking to help them be creative. While any form of exercise has been shown to activate the brain, walking has also been shown to be creative booster.”12
She noted that she enjoys walking with purpose, sometimes to learn and be productive, including doing walking coaching calls or listening to podcasts, and sometimes to connect with others and find gratitude and perspective:13
“When I need some perspective, I take a walk and look at the sun, trees, and water. These views remind me to think about the vastness of the universe, appreciate the beauty of nature, and prompt me to consider how much more world there is for me. Explore (when safe).
… As someone who experiences chronic and acute back pain, when I walk I often focus on how lucky I am to be able to walk—and how easy it is to be pain-free. I focus on the gift of feeling safe as a woman walking alone (most of the time). Or having a clean, hot shower waiting for me at the end of my walk. Or I might even focus on the gift of being alive now when so many are dying. “
Walking may be the best place to exercise
While most Americans don’t get enough exercise, it’s possible to overdo it. In fact, too much strenuous exercise can be counterproductive and actually harm your health rather than help it. Dr. James O’Keefe, a cardiologist at the Mid-America Heart Institute at St. Louis Hospital in Kansas City, and three co-authors published a landmark study that fundamentally changed the way I think about exercise.14
If you’re sedentary and you start exercising, you get a dose-dependent decrease in mortality, diabetes, depression, hypertension, coronary heart disease, osteoporosis, sarcopenia, falls, and more. But people who do a lot of strenuous exercise start to lose the longevity benefits. If you participate in a full triathlon in your 40s and 50s, your risk of developing atrial fibrillation increases by 500% to 800%.
The important point, however, is that in the case of moderate exercise – loosely defined as exercising to the point where you’re a little out of breath but still able to carry on a conversation – the evidence is clear that more is better, and you can’t overdo it. Perhaps more surprisingly, moderate exercise, including walking, also improved all-cause survival more than vigorous exercise, about twice as much, according to O’Keefe.
Other studies show that even a small amount of walking can have significant longevity benefits. In a study of 3,101 adults, those who walked 8,000 or more steps just one or two days a week had a significantly lower risk of all-cause and cardiovascular death.
“The findings suggest that for adults who have difficulty exercising regularly, completing the recommended daily number of steps on only a few days per week may have health consequences,” the researchers wrote in the journal JAMA. Meaningful benefits.”15
How many steps should you aim to take each day?
The average American walks about 3,800 steps a day, which is just under 2 miles. O’Keefe noted that about 2,000 steps per mile, or 1,000 steps per day on average, reduces mortality by 10 to 15 percent. In our interview, he explained:
“There’s been an increasing amount of research being done using activity trackers. We’re getting big data from, for example, the UK Biobank, which has 500,000 people, and there’s a sizable sub-group of them who have been wearing activity trackers and have been tracked10 Year.
Obviously, more is better. Benefit greatly from a sedentary lifestyle – walking 2,000 to 3,000 steps a day – and up to 7,000 or 8,000 steps. [Here] Mortality rates dropped dramatically and survival rates increased. This lasts about 12,000 steps per day. Most studies suggest it stabilizes at 12,000. “
I do recommend using a fitness tracker like the Oura Ring to track your steps. Most phones also come with free activity trackers, so you can have your phone with you in a pinch. It’s not ideal due to the electromagnetic fields (EMF) it emits, but you can put it in airplane mode, or better yet, put it in a Faraday bag.
Ideas to change your walking habits
If you’re an experienced walker and want to add some variety to your walking routine, Nordic walking (sometimes called Nordic pole walking) is one way to do it. It involves walking using fixed-length ski poles with a motion similar to cross-country skiing, but without the snow.
Nordic walking originated in Finland and is often used by cross-country skiers for training during the off-season.16 While a typical walk or run activates about 40% of your muscles, Nordic Walking activates 90% of your muscles, providing an all-in-one workout for your lower and upper body. It also requires approximately 18% to 25% more oxygen consumption than poleless walking at the same speed.number 17
Nordic walking may be an ideal form of exercise for people with coronary heart disease because it can improve functional ability (or perform tasks related to daily living) to a greater extent than other forms of exercise, including high-intensity interval exercise. activity ability) training (HIIT) and moderate-intensity continuous training (MICT).18
Like regular walking, Nordic walking is low-impact and suitable for people of all fitness levels. For example, in a systematic review, a Nordic walking program was found to be an effective way to lose weight in overweight and obese patients, with additional benefits on cardiovascular disease risk factors.19 The use of walking sticks also makes Nordic walking attractive to people with limited mobility, including those with Parkinson’s disease.
Of course, you can try walking backwards in a safe, barrier-free environment. In a study published in the journal Cognition, researchers at the University of Roehampton (UR) in London found that walking backwards can even improve your memory.20
Additionally, it puts less pressure on the knee joint and requires less range of motion, making it ideal for those with knee problems or injuries. Additionally, because walking backwards eliminates the typical heel strike, it may result in changes in pelvic alignment that may reduce the stress associated with low back pain.twenty one
Most importantly, be sure to schedule time for regular daily activities. It’s a simple and easy way to significantly improve your overall health and well-being.