Walking has many benefits for the body and mind. It lifts your mood, boosts your cardiovascular system and also ensures that you get to know and appreciate your neighbourhood better.
To keep yourself physically fit, it is not absolutely necessary to do regular, sweat-inducing workouts. It is much more important that you move at all.
You can accomplish this by taking regular walks. You can still improve your health by taking a quick stroll. It is crucial that you engage in regular exercise. You can find out what benefits walking has for you here. It basically calms you for your next working day or the next betting session you have planned.
1. walking lifts our mood
Going for a walk lifts our mood – even when we don’t expect it.
Even if we have no expectations, going for a walk will almost certainly lift our spirits. This was the outcome of a study that was published in a global psychology journal in 2016. The research indicates that even mild, infrequent physical activity, like taking a walk, can improve our mood. This, incidentally, also applied to the study’s test subjects who were ignorant of its goal or who had a bad opinion of walking.
It is therefore advisable to go for a walk, especially in the darker months of the year. This way you can prevent the autumn blues and winter depression. For example, it is enough to go for a walk during your lunch break. Even if you don’t feel like it beforehand, the walk will be worthwhile for you. You will also boost your vitamin D production and prevent vitamin D deficiency.
2. walking: A potentially longer life
According to a study from the USA with around 351,000 participants, regular exercise leads to us living longer. According to the researchers, regular exercise is either 150 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise per week or 75 minutes of intensive exercise. Moderate exercise is defined as any activity that increases the heart rate (compared to the resting heart rate) by 50 to 60 per cent. This can also include a brisk walk.
3. walking as an introduction to a healthy lifestyle
Ingo Froböse explains that going for a walk can be a ‘good introduction to a healthier lifestyle’. Walking can also improve your fitness – provided it’s not just a ‘normal stroll’, but a slightly more vigorous walk. You should therefore walk a little faster than you normally would.
Walking can also be a good way for beginners to prepare the body for more intensive activities such as jogging. According to Froböse, if you regularly go for a brisk walk, your joints, tendons and bones can slowly adapt to a more active lifestyle. You can then gradually increase the intensity until you feel ready for your first jog.
As an aside, Froböse asserts that we do not need to walk the enchanted and well-publicized 10,000 steps a day in order to be physically fit. Rather, each individual should determine how many steps they can take in a day. You could attempt to walk 3,000 steps more than usual each day, for instance. But this doesn’t necessarily require an app. You can also just pay attention to how your body feels.
4 Increased concentration through walking
Going for a walk is a good way to take a short break from working on your laptop.
Do you know the problem of sitting at a task for hours and at some point just not being able to concentrate on it? Sometimes it can help if you take a short break from your work. This is because exercise also boosts the oxygen supply in your brain so that you can concentrate better afterwards. Problems that cannot be solved by thinking hard may be easier to tackle after a walk.
5. walks can alleviate depression
Regular walking can alleviate depressive symptoms and causes.
The Robert Koch Institute looked into the relationship between mental health and physical activity. But this goes beyond simply improving your mood after a walk (see point two). Instead, the study discusses the long-term psychological effects of walking. Exercise has been shown to be a sustainable way to reduce the symptoms of mental illnesses like depression. Additionally, exercise lowers the chance of contracting these diseases.
The study states: ‘Physical training can be effective for depression to a similar extent as drug therapy’.
6. you can discover new things when you go for a walk
Going for a walk in unfamiliar places can be an enriching experience. It doesn’t matter whether you go into the forest or just walk to a different neighbourhood. You might discover a beautiful clearing, a quiet spot by the river or a cosy café. The discovery gives you an additional reward for your walk.
7. walks can prevent and alleviate dementia
Walking can prevent dementia and even alleviate the effects of the disease.
Another scientific study investigated links between physical activity and dementia. The result was that regular exercise can reduce the risk of dementia . According to the study, this is particularly true for Alzheimer’s, the most common type of dementia. The researchers also categorised light and brisk walking as physical activity.
Another effect was also observed: Physical activity not only reduces the risk of dementia , but can also curb the effects of the disease.