18 Reasons to Walk More This Year
"The simple things are frequently the most powerful" - Dr. Cohen.
Take a look at this great article about some simple things you can do for you health and longevity written by Mark's Daily Apple.
How many of these are you doing?
Even though some of you may be tired of me saying this, it needs saying. I say this a lot because itâs important: you need to walk more. In fact, if thereâs one simple health intervention I think everyone should make, it would be to take more walks. Many of you figure you get enough physical activity by lifting weights and running sprints, but youâd be wrong. Nope. No one really walks as much as they should. That small subset of my readers who do walk enough should still read this post if only to fortify their resolve.
Why do I hammer home this point so often, anyway?
There are a few main reasons why Iâm so fond of walking, also known as moving frequently at a slow pace. First, itâs all-inclusive. Absent debilitating injury or infirmity, everyone can walk. No excuses (unless you have one). Second, the necessary equipment is right down there. See those bizarre appendages underneath you? Thatâs what you walk with. See that horizontal surface stretching into the horizon? Thatâs what you walk on. Third, itâs the foundation for good health and makes life better. Itâs this last point that brings me to the meat of todayâs post: all the ways in which walking enhances our life.
Why should you walk? What are the benefits?
Walking activates your glutes
A wise man once said that excessive sitting causes glute inactivation and atrophy. This is true, but itâs not like simply standing is enough to keep them strong and engaged. You have to walk, and walk often. To make sure the way you walk is actually activating your glutes, place your hands on each glute. You should feel your glute tense up a bit with each footfall as it accepts the load, and that same glute should tense up even more when you push off to take another step so that your hand gets a little âpushback.â Gallivant around like this, making sure each glute is working. Those buttocks! Neâer-do-wells, the lot of âem if you give âem half a chance!
Walking reduces body fat
Walking isnât going to get you shredded, ripped, cut, or yoked. It might not be as brutally and mechanistically effective on a minute for minute basis as other forms of exercise, but frequent walking will help anyone with two functioning legs and hip and knee joints that allow movement who would otherwise meld into the couch lose some body fat. If you really want to lose body fat, a fasted walk every morning is a reliable way to do it.
Walking lowers blood sugar
Just 15 minutes of walking after eating improved the blood glucose control in older people with poor glucose tolerance. Try to keep the walk as close to the meal as possible to aid in weight loss.1
Walking improves heart health markers
Whether short (ten 3-minute bouts of brisk walking) or longer (one 30-minute bout of brisk walking), briskly walking after a meal lowers postprandial blood pressure and triglyceride levels.2
Walking speed predicts longevity
A recent study of over 7000 male and 31000 female recreational walkers found that walking intensity predicted mortality risk.3 Those who walked the fastest tended to die the least. Itâs important to note that this wasnât an interventional study where walkers were coached to walk faster; this was just looking at the relationship between natural walking speed and mortality risk, so naturally slow walkers who resolve to increase their speed may not see the same relationship â but it certainly canât hurt!
Walking is great for arthritis
Arthritis patients have it tough on the exercise front. They wonât get any better avoiding exercise, but exercise tends to hurt. What to do when you canât do anything else (yet)? Walk. Walking is gentle, particularly if you perform it with proper form. And one study even found that adding walking to a physical therapy program improves results for adults with osteoarthritis.4
Walking improves cognitive function
Walking does much more than work the area underneath your neck. It also has extensive cognitive benefits, improving memory in seniors, cognitive control and academic performance in preadolescents5, and (when done outdoors) boosting creativity in the young and healthy.67 The farther an older person can walk in six minutes, the better he or she performs on memory and logic tests; folks who perform poorly on the walking test tend to have reduced grey matter volume in certain sections of their brains.8 Aristotleâs famed tendency to walk as he taught students suddenly makes sense.
Walking lowers stress
What do I do when I need to get away from a particularly stressful day in âcivilizationâ? Go for a walk, preferably in a natural setting. For me, itâs the beach or, when Iâm back in California, the Malibu hills. For others, it might be the woods or even a park. Sure enough, going for a walk in the woods is a surefire way to lower cortisol.9
Walking lowers stress even when it doesnât
A recent study examined the effect of forest walking on stress in young adults, finding that although chromogranin A (a biomarker of stress) increased, the subjects reported reductions in subjective perceptions of stress (which, remember, may matter more than âobjectiveâ markers).10
Walking boosts immune function
Several lines of evidence point to the benefits of walking on the immune system. First, a âmereâ 30 minute walk increases killer T-cells and other markers of immune function.11 Second, among free-living Japanese elderly, higher daily step counts correlate with improved mucosal immunity.12 Finally, among postmenopausal women involved in a walking training program, the normally deleterious immune effects associated with menopause were ameliorated.13
Walking prevents falls in the elderly
Walking on uneven, natural ground like hiking trails, improves balance and reduces falls in the elderly.14 âWalking programs,â which usually have elderly patients walking indoors or on treadmills as briskly as they can handle do not appear to work very well.15 Slow, unsteady, and meandering walks appear to be better. Donât wait until youâre already at risk of falling, though. The earlier you start habitually walking, the better your ability to navigate the land without falling will be.
Walking lowers low back pain
Walking is an easy, gentle intervention for lower back pain that performs just as well as other physical therapies that can be more grueling, expensive, and difficult to access.16
Walking improves creativityÂ
When we walk, we think. And because walking is a low-difficulty endeavor, we can direct our executive functioning to more internal matters. We work through problems, come up with ideas, replay conversations, scheme, ruminate, and discover solutions. Or maybe we just think about that funny dog we saw on the way to work the other day. Thatâs a worthy subject, too.
Walking can be a great way to meditateÂ
Meditation is a foreign concept for many Westerners; we know about it, but we donât know it. Even when we want to try it, having read about the benefits, we canât quite muster the will to sit still for twenty, thirty minutes at a time. Enter the walking meditation. Do it formally, or just go for a walk and let your mind tune out from all the chatter. Youâll feel better either way.
Walking improves meetings
Regular old seated meetings can be tedious, yawn-inducing beasts, even when the people and subject matter involved are interesting. Walking meetings, which are exactly what it sounds like, are growing more commonplace in the business world, and I couldnât be happier.
Walking is in your blood
Your distant ancestors didnât develop horribly calloused knuckles and brave savannah predators just so you could sit at the computer and devolve into an immobile blob. You come from a long and storied line of walkers. Keep the tradition alive!
Walking is in your genes
This one sounds similar to the last one, but itâs different. What I mean by âitâs in your genesâ is your genes âexpectâ you to move around a lot at a slow pace, and walking affects how your genes are expressed. Walking has been shown, for example, to positively affect the genes responsible for fat and carbohydrate metabolism in skeletal muscle, to reduce inflammatory gene expression in adipose tissue, and to lower oxidative and inflammatory gene expression pathways in older adults.171819
Walking enforces presence
When you drive, you canât really focus on all the interesting stuff occurring in the world around you. Outside of whatâs happening on the road, you shouldnât focus on whatâs occurring around you when you drive. Even riding a bike you tend to get tunnel vision. Walking on the other hand offers infinite chances for engagement with the outside world. See a rose? When youâre walking, you can stop and smell it. See a little path on the side of the trail heading somewhere cool? If you were driving, youâd have whizzed right past it. We all need a little more presence in our lives, and walking enables it.
As you can see from the bulk of the evidence Iâve just presented, walking can have a powerful effect on your health â and it doesnât take very much of it. Most studies showing the benefits have people walk for ten, fifteen, thirty minutes at a time. Thatâs a lunch break. Thatâs parking in the last lot. Thatâs taking a quick jaunt around the block. Thatâs stealing a few moments away from your desk. Itâs doable, people. You just have to do it.
Thatâs it for today, guys. Now itâs your turn. Do you walk every day? Do you walk âenoughâ? Do you plan on walking more this year? Tell me why, tell me why not, or just tell me how walking has enriched your life. Thanks for reading!