Today is National Walking Day. It is always the first Wednesday in April and reminds us of the importance of a walk. If you go to this site you can actually virtually walk along the beach for 47 minutes. The ocean sounds are incredible and you can almost feel the breeze listening to the sounds of this. Enjoy!

People often ask, “Can I lose weight by walking 30 minutes a day?”  It is important for weight control because it helps you burn calories. If you add 30 minutes of brisk walking to your daily routine, you could burn about 150 more calories a day. Of course, the more you walk and the quicker your pace, the more calories you’ll burn. If you walk briskly you can burn as much as 300 calories and if you continue on as much as 600 calories in an hour of walking.

Prevention offers 10 Benefits from walking which I will list here. They also are sponsoring a “virtual” walk on May 1 – Go here for more information on that.

  1. Walking will improve your mood especially when surrounded by greenery or soaking in some sunlight.
  2. Regular walking can improve your body’s response to insulin, which can help reduce belly fat. It also increases metabolism by burning extra calories and preventing muscle loss, so important as we age.
  3. Have issues with high blood pressure? Researchers at the University of Boulder Colorado and the University of Tennessee found that regular walking lowered blood pressure by as much as 11 points and may reduce the risk of stroke by up to 40%. One of the most cited studies on walking and health, published in The New England Journal of Medicine, found that those who walked enough to meet physical activity guidelines had a 30% lower risk of cardiovascular disease, compared with those who did not walk regularly.
  4. As you age, your risk of varicose veins increases. However, walking is a proven way to prevent them from developing, says Luis Navarro, M.D., founder and director of The Vein Treatment Center in New York City.
  5.  a regular walking routine can greatly improve your bowel movements, says Tara Alaichamy, D.P.T., a physical therapist at Cancer Treatment Centers of America. “One of the very first things an abdominal surgery patient is required to do is to walk because it utilizes core and abdominal muscles, encouraging movement in our GI system,” she says.
  6. Have other goals to accomplish? By establishing a routine of walking it actually helps in reaching other goals as well.
  7. Stuck trying to solve a problem or need to be more creative? According to a 2014 study in the Journal of Experimental Psychology, Learning, Memory, and Cognition, going for a walk can spark creativity. “Researchers administered creative-thinking tests to subjects while seated and while walking and found that the walkers thought more creatively than the sitters,” says Dr. Jampolis.
  8. Walking can help improve your range of motion and mobility because it increases blood flow to tense areas and helps strengthen the muscles surrounding your joints. In fact, research shows that walking for at least 10 minutes a day—or about an hour every week—can stave off disability and arthritis pain in older adults. 
  9. If you have read the book Blue Zones you know that walking is a big part of living to 100. A study in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society showed that adults between the ages of 70 and 90 who left the house and were physically active lived longer than those who didn’t.
  10. We all know that the hormone melatonin helps us sleep better. A 2019 study from Sleep found that postmenopausal women who do light to moderate intensity physical activity snooze better at night than those who are sedentary. Walking also helps reduce pain and stress, which can cause sleep disturbances.

There you have it! So go on to that site above and walk along the ocean – I have been listening to the sounds of the ocean while writing this post and it has been very soothing. Now I have to get up and walk with them

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