Simplest Physical Activity You Can Do Daily To Stay Healthy

• You are convinced that doing an exercise is good for health.


• You want to protect your health.


• You are asking yourself what activity and how much of it must you do to keep yourself healthy.


• You are asking yourself how to integrate such an activity in your daily life.

Day after day, a regular physical activity associated with healthy eating habits, keeps you in good health, helps you to avoid putting on weight and protects you from heart diseases. Most people do not have the time to do this physical activity. But for every problem there is most of the time a simple solution and the solution here is... WALKING!


Benefits of walking

Safe exercise: It is one of the safest exercise. It does not put much strain on the body and there is no risk like that accompanying high impact workouts like martial arts. It is therefore recommended even for people who are recovering after surgery. It is also the safest exercise for women before and after pregnancy. It suits all age-groups too.

Convenient: You can choose to walk at any time, late at night, early in the morning at your own convenience. However walking when the sun is too high is not advisable.

Low cost: You don’t need any expensive equipment apart from loose fitting comfortable garments and a pair of comfortable sports shoes.

Aerobic workout: Regular walking increases the demand for oxygen so that you inhale more air without an effort and thus do not tire easily. Circulation of the blood and the respiration improve. Walking prevents cerebral strokes and heart attacks. It also reduces the blood pressure in hypertensive patients.

Burns calories: If you are overweight, walking is the ideal exercise because it puts less strain on bones and joints as compared to other aerobic exercises. Brisk walking can pep up your basal metabolic rate and burn up calories.

Prevents osteoporosis: Walking stimulates formation of new bone tissues which tend to prevent calcium loss from the bones. This helps prevent osteoporosis, especially in women after menopause.

Stress fighter and mood enhancer: A regular fitness walking program relieves you of stress by improving the secretion of neuro hormones, which beat anxiety and depression by giving you a pleasant feeling, while at the same time restoring vitality and promoting a sense of well-being.

The recommended duration for walking as a physical activity is 30 minutes of daily brisk walking. Brisk walking is an activity which makes you breathe more rapidly than usual but which allows you, at the same time, to speak without additional effort on your part. If you are walking and you feel you can't speak quite well, decrease the pace. Brisk walking is about 4-6 kms per hour.


Why must we walk daily?


It's simply because daily walking has great benefits on your health. The ideal way to perform this is to do it about 5 times per week but 7 times is best. The effect of doing 210 minutes of exercise on a sunday is not the same as doing about 30 minutes of exercising 7 times per week.


Examples of Walking

Light intensity: Slow walk, sweeping floors with a broom, water the garden, playing billard, bowling and slow danse.

Moderate Intensity: Rapid Walk, washing the car, vacuuming your house, washing the windows, light gardening, picking up fallen leaves, aerobic, dance (disco, rock...), playing badminton.

High Intensity: Brisk walking, going on long walks, jogging. This is the kind of walking you must do for 30 minutes per day.

Is it absolutely necessary to do these 30 minutes in 1 go?

No.

It is possible to do this at different times of the day. Nevertheless, whenever feasible, do the walking in periods of 10 minutes. Like that, you can achieve the goal of 30 minutes of walking per day easily.


Some practical tips

These are all commonsense tips but it doesn't hurt to go over them again.

• Go shopping or to buy your bread on foot.


• Walk to your work.


• If you are taking the bus, stop one station before your destination stop and walk the remaining distance.


• Park your car about 400 metres from your destination and walk the rest of the way.


• Use the stairs.


• Make a few breaks during your work period or when you are watching tv and take a walk around your house or your workstation. Never sit down for long periods of time as this may cause back pain.


• Spend more time in your garden than usual.


• If you have got a dog, take a him for a walk more frequently and for a longer period of time.

Walking is one of the most pleasant and easiest methods to keep slim and fit for life. So take a walk as soon as you finish reading this sentence!