Walking is amazing. Not only does it relax the nervous system by reducing stress, but it also lowers blood pressure and strengthens the heart.

And It’s Easy!

Many people who are at risk for stroke and heart disease are overweight and find it hard to exercise. However, walking is a low-impact exercise that almost anyone can do, and it is a great way to start adding physical activity to your lifestyle.

Walking allows you to start where you are.

It’s easy and doesn’t cost much money to get started. Just put on your walking shoes and get out there!

Start Like This…

Start with five minutes if that’s all you can do or have time for. You could also walk to the mailbox and back three times a day. Start small.

Don’t be surprised if you feel so good and enjoy it so much that you add a few more minutes to your walk after a few days.

Whatever you do, don’t underestimate the power of action by just getting started.

Challenge Yourself

To gain greater health benefits, experiment with how fast you walk by picking up the pace or alternating a faster pace with a slower pace.

After a few days, start picking up the pace and increase your time.

After a couple of weeks, you might find yourself up to 20 or 30 minutes or even 45 minutes and logging thousands of steps.

If you don’t have time for thirty minutes all at once, you can break it up into three 10-minute sessions throughout your day.

Remember to discuss your walking plans with your doctor if you have high blood pressure or are at risk for heart disease so that you can create a safe walking plan that’s appropriate for you.

Enjoy The Benefits

Give yourself the gift of enjoying walking. Walking is relaxing and lowers blood pressure, especially if it’s outside in a pretty park in the fresh air. You will feel better, and your mood will brighten. But the benefits do not stop there.

Regular physical activity strengthens the heart because it’s a muscle. Therefore, a brisk walk works out more than your leg muscles; it conditions your heart, too.

Your heart gets stronger as you continue to condition it through walking, making it easier to pump blood through your body. Your muscles will strengthen, and you will burn body fat, which is good for your blood pressure in the long term.

All it takes is a short, enjoyable walk each day.

As you get stronger, your walks will become longer, and you may even try swimming or riding your bike.

A healthy diet, regular physical activity, and losing weight are among the most effective ways to reduce hypertension.

When you consider that walking can greatly reduce stress, it’s little wonder that walking has such beneficial effects on your health and well-being.

You were designed to move! Are you ready to get started? Then let’s lace up our shoes and go for a walk.!

The post Walking: Lower Your Blood Pressure And Strengthen Your Heart! appeared first on Lifestyle.

Wow. That’s a pretty strong statement. Here’s another article on the many benefits of walking we published a while ago on Why Walking Is Amazing, if you missed it.

God designed us to walk; it’s one of our strengths. Walking is a beautiful thing – a wonderful experience! Don’t think so? Then, ask someone who tragically lost the ability to walk.

How unfortunate we spend most of our time sitting down. 

Sitting down and sitting still is unhealthy. Consider these findings reported by the Mayo Clinic, “Researchers analyzed 13 studies of sitting time and activity levels. They found that those who sat for more than eight hours a day with no physical activity had a risk of dying similar to that posed by obesity and smoking.”

If anything is clear, it’s this: we need to move more; adding walking to our lifestyle is a great start.

What if we made walking a habit, like brushing our teeth, doing the laundry on the weekends, or taking the trash out every week? 

Here are some ideas to add more walking to your life so it becomes a habit, like brushing your teeth.

Find A Walking Path

Find a safe nearby trail, path, or route you might enjoy walking. If it’s too far away, you won’t do it daily. If you have a favorite place over thirty or forty minutes away, save it for the weekends. 

Otherwise, look for something nearby. Your neighborhood is ideal if it’s safe and pedestrian-friendly because you can leave from your front door and be on your way.

Use The Same Route

Using the same route forms a groove in your mind to make walking a habit. When you know a route well and how long it takes to walk, you can quicken your pace to beat what you did last time. And you can measure your progress to track improved fitness levels. 

Listen Or Plan or Pray or Meditate…

Own your walking experience. People use walking for many different reasons. For some, it boosts creativity. Others use it to mediate and talk to God. Some want silence and the gift of connecting with themselves. Some like relaxing and listening to their favorite music, podcasts, or books. Others like socializing with their friends during their walks by inviting them to join them or calling them on the phone and talking while they walk. 

You can entice yourself to go walking by saving your favorite music or podcast for your walk and only listening to it there. This is a great way to bribe yourself for those days you don’t feel like walking. 

The More, The Merrier

We mentioned this briefly, but consider walking with others or forming a walking group. If you don’t want to start one, find one in your area or invite a friend or neighbor to be your walking buddy. But promise you’ll still walk if something comes up and they can’t join you. Walking with a partner has many benefits: it’s safer and more fun, boosts your social connection, strengthens your immune system, builds accountability, and makes time pass faster.

If walking doesn’t excite you, create momentum to quickly build this habit by setting your timer for five minutes and going for a short, pleasant walk. You’ll find that you actually DO enjoy walking because of how it makes you feel. In fact, chances are you’ll want to walk longer next time you go because the fresh air will relax your mind and body, calming your nerves, reducing stress, and clearing your mind.

Give these tips a try to encourage yourself to make walking a daily habit for better health, a stronger mind, and a more peaceful, less-stressed life.

The post The “New” Wonder Drug appeared first on Lifestyle.

For starters, some people just don’t have the time, while others are nervous or self-conscious and would rather take some time to build their confidence before doing jump lunges in front of a jam packed gym of spectators.

This is where non-exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT) comes in, which is basically any activity that isn’t sleeping, a sport or exercise.

The idea behind NEAT is that you don’t need to become a fitness fanatic to stay fit; you just need to keep moving.

Not having enough time for the gym isn’t an excuse to become a couch potato. There’s still a lot you can do to stay fit.

Cook your Meals from Scratch

You probably already know that it’s easier to eat healthy when you make your meals from scratch. In addition to controlling how much sugar and fat that goes into your food, there’s also an additional benefit: you do a lot of standing and walking around during meal prep.

Sure it seems like a small thing, but standing lowers your risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes and other diseases that are caused by a sedentary lifestyle. It can also lower stress and boost energy levels.

Take up an Active Hobby

Engaging in an active hobby can help you stay fit while enriching your life. Gardening, hiking, cooking, dancing, or pretty much any hobby that gets you off the couch, benefits your life and health. Whether you prefer to be indoors or outdoors, you can find an active hobby that plays a role in helping you stay fit.

Skip Some Conveniences

We’ve grown accustomed to the convenience of modern life, such as food delivery services. Unfortunately, while certain conveniences make life easier and free up time, they also take away valuable opportunities to stay active.

For example, a grocery delivery service robs you of all the moving around and lifting involved with grocery shopping. It might not seem like a big deal at first, but when you think about it, these conveniences can add up to create a sedentary lifestyle.

To stay active and be fit, consider giving up some of the conveniences that you don’t really need. You might even save some money in the process!

Walk More

You’ve heard it a million times but it deserves another mention. There’s probably no better way to stay fit without hitting the gym than to walk.

So, park a couple of minutes away from work or the store and walk. Plan the walking route in advance so you don’t find yourself in an unwalkable or unsafe area.

Walking is good for the heart, lowers the risk of coronary artery disease, and is a great for stress reduction; many people aim for 10,000 steps a day.

The bottom line is that it’s possible to enjoy better health and wellness without spending hours a day at the gym.

Just get off the couch and take up an active hobby, cook your own meals, walk more and generally find creative ways to leverage the power of non-exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT) that fit easily into your lifestyle.

The post No Time For The Gym? Just Keep Moving appeared first on Lifestyle.