A great indicator of your state of health is how long you can walk. I define a long walk as being over one hour in duration. Walking and life expectancy are closely linked, and it's the "chicken or egg" question. Are you in good health because you walk fast and longer, or walk faster and longer because you are in good health?
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Getting out on the road and taking a long walk is the high point of my walking experience! I’ve experience 30 benefits of taking a long walk.
My favorite benefits of taking a long walk are the thinking time, creative time, and the educational opportunity that spending so much time on a long walk gives me.
I usually plan one long walk per weekend and spend the week planning it out via Google Maps or Map Pedometer.
It only takes a few minutes to go over the map, plan out places to stop for a break, and get a sense of the terrain. But the time spent planning is well worth it just in terms of the excitement it builds.
Over time, you will build a library of “go-to” walking routes of various distance and time requirements. Enjoy the process of building this library.
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30 benefits of taking a long walk:
Spending more time in the sunlight to increase vitamin D production. When exposed to the sun, your skin manufactures its own vitamin D. Our skin does this through Vitamin D receptor cells. Starting with converting cholesterol in the skin, a chain of reactions produces vitamin D3 when exposed to ultraviolet B (UVB) from the sun.
Opening capillaries in your legs to increase blood flow and muscle growth. Capillaries are where oxygen and nutrients are exchanged for carbon dioxide and waste. Oxygen and nutrients from the blood move through the walls and get into organs and tissues. Walking longer at any pace is beneficial to increase blood flow throughout the body. Walking is the best way to lower your blood pressure and increase muscle contraction in the legs. Through the walking motion, muscles contract and relax, then squeeze around the large veins in the legs, promoting healthy circulation in more stagnant blood flow areas.
Increased heart fitness. Walking increases your heart rate, strengthens your heart muscle, and improves blood circulation through your body. A greater heart rate brings more oxygen and nutrients to your organs.
Increases lung fitness. When walking, your breathing rate increases, causing oxygen to travel faster through the bloodstream. The physical activity of walking also increases your lungs' ability to take in oxygen, lowers blood pressure, helps to reduce body fat, and improves blood sugar and cholesterol levels. The longer you walk, the great the heart and lung fitness. Try the 4-3 breathing pattern on your next walk in which you inhale for 4 steps, exhale for 3 steps.
Reduced risk of heart disease and stroke. As you walk longer and exert more effort, the heart pumps more blood through the body and continues working at optimal efficiency with very little strain, and the increased effort will help it stay healthy longer. A regular walking exercise habit also helps keep arteries and other blood vessels flexible and fit, ensuring good blood flow and normal blood pressure reducing your risk of a stroke.
Get in a total body workout by performing bodyweight exercises such as pushups, lunges, squats, and planks. An Effective strength training regimen promotes the release of vital "youth" hormones: Testosterone (for men), Estradiol and Estrogen (for women).
Strength training helps prevent the loss of muscular strength known to accompany aging. When I use the phrase "strength training," I don't mean heading to the gym and using free weights or stationary machines either.
Bodyweight exercises done while walking will give you a complete workout.
Learn More: Walking for Health and Fitness Complete Walking Program
Stress reduction. Walking releases four vital neurotransmitters that impact motivation, productivity, creativity, and wellbeing.
Endorphin
Dopamine
Serotonin
Oxytocin
Each play a role in your emotional health. These feel-good neurotransmitters continue surging through your body long after your complete your walk.
Improved management of hypertension (high blood pressure). Physical activity makes your heart stronger (see #3). A stronger heart can pump more blood with less effort. With less effort, the force on your arteries decreases, lowering your blood pressure. Check out my Pleasure Walking Program by Frank S. Ring: Improve your mindset on your next long walk! Try it RISK FREE!
Lower high cholesterol levels. Moderate physical activity can help raise high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol, the "good" cholesterol. Exercise may even change the nature of our cholesterol. In 2002, researchers from Duke University Medical Center found that exercise improved the number and size of the particles carrying cholesterol through the body. Those who exercised more had larger, “fluffier” particles that were less likely to clog arteries.
Walking Supports Your Joints. From my book, Walking for Health and Fitness, most joint cartilage has no direct blood supply. The cartilage gets its nutrition from the synovial or joint fluid that circulates as we move. The impact from movement or compression, such as walking, "squishes" the cartilage, bringing oxygen and nutrients into the area. If you don't walk, joints get deprived of life-giving fluid, which can speed deterioration.
Walking strengthens muscles. Walking tones your leg and abdominal muscles– and even arm muscles-- if you pump them as you walk.
Lessen muscular pain and stiffness. If you are sore after doing other workouts such as weightlifting or Bootcamp type workouts, a good long walk will help flush the lactic acid and other toxins to aid in recovery from the microtears that happen in those activities. Muscles go through physical stress when we exercise vigorously, so mild soreness is just a natural outcome of any physical activity. Soreness is most prevalent in the beginning stages of a new fitness program. More muscular legs and abdominal muscles built through taking longer walks will increase your range of motion, shifting the pressure and weight away from your joints and to your muscles designed to handle the weight.
Helps manage diabetes. exercise lowers blood glucose levels and boosts your body's sensitivity to insulin, countering insulin resistance. Many studies have shown that people with diabetes who walked at least two hours a week were less likely to die of heart disease than their sedentary counterparts, and those who exercised three to four hours a week cut their risk even more.
Build stronger bones in the legs and spine. Osteoporosis is a bone-thinning disease in women after menopause and in older men. Inactivity causes loss of bone! Exercise strengthens bones much the same way it strengthens muscle. Our bones are living tissue and change over time in response to the force placed upon it. Walking regularly and longer build more bone and cause them to become denser. Improving your bone density requires Vitamin D (see #1) and good nutrition with adequate calcium. Also, the exercise you use must be site-specific. For example, walking won't improve the bone density of your forearms. See my Fitness Waking Exercise Program for a complete body workout.
Help relieve back pain. We need to move! As a survival mechanism, our bodies are built to be active. Most causes of back pain can be attributed to a lack of movement. Too much sitting at home in front of the TV or computer screen, too much sitting on our commute to and from work, too much sitting at the job all conspire to weaken our vital core muscles, causing an imbalance which leads to back tightness, then soreness, then outright pain! (See #12)
Improve your balance. Walking strengthens the muscles of the lower body, and these muscles are an essential element of good balance, especially as we get older.
Flush waste from tired muscles. Your heart will beat faster as you near the end of a long walk, increasing blood flow to your muscles. Your small blood vessels will widen to deliver more oxygen to the muscles and carry away carbon dioxide and other waste products that build up.
Walking Leads to Weight Loss. A one-hour walk will burn calories based on your Basal Metabolic Rate. BMR is the number of calories you need each day to perform basic bodily functions. Over time, calories burned can lead to pounds dropped.
Calories Burned = BMR x METs/24 x hour
METs are Metabolic Equivalents. One METS is defined as the energy it takes to sit quietly. ... Vigorous-intensity activities burn more than 6 METs.
From my book Fitness Walking and Bodyweight Exercises: Lifestyle Considerations and Weight-loss Example:
Man, age 50: 5’10” - 180 pounds.
If he lives a sedentary lifestyle, he needs 2019 calories per day to maintain his current body weight
If he wants to lose 1 pound per week, he must limit his calories to 1519 (500 fewer calories each day)
If the same man is moderately active (walks 3-5 times per week) he would need to consume 2608 calories per day to maintain his body weight and consume 2108 calories to lose 1 pound.
As a result of walking, he can consume more 589 more calories than if he was sedentary and can still lose a pound per week.
If he was extremely active (walking 6 times per week and added bodyweight exercise 3 times per week) he can consume 884 more calories per day and still lose weight.
Look at Those Numbers Again:
Sedentary lifestyle: 1519 calories per day to lose 1 pound per week
Extremely Active lifestyle: 2403 calories and still lose 1 pound per week
Get extremely active and eat 884 extra calories and still lose weight
Helps burn fat as fuel. A low to moderate intensity walk can actually help you burn fat. That's because the body uses stored fat as fuel compared to workouts of a higher intensity, which rely on carbohydrates. Use the talk test to determine your intensity. If you can talk to a partner with ease, you are walking at a low intensity rate. If you can only speak a few words at a time, you are into a moderate intensity workout.
Burn more calories even after you have completed your walk. Called caloric after-burn, this is the process by which your body burns calories after you have completed your workout. Caloric after-burn is caused as your body uses oxygen and calories to remove lactic acid, repair muscles, and replenish stores of creatine, oxygen, and adenosine triphosphate (ATP). To make the most of this, increase the "workout" intensity during your long walk.
Here are four suggestions to increase your caloric after-burn:
Speed up for short intervals of time (interval training)
Walk up more hills during your long walk. The incline of hills causes you to engage more leg muscles which burn more calories
Walk on various terrain to engage more muscles than just walking on a flat surface.
Walk at higher elevations. Take a day trip into hill/mountain country. The higher altitude causes a physiological change in your body to adapt. This will increase your Basal Metabolic Rate (the amount of energy needed to keep your body working correctly at rest for 24 hours), which will continue the caloric after-burn.
Boost your confidence and impress your friends. Let's face it, how many people can walk for over an hour straight? Great job on your part, so share your accomplishment with your friends and family via social media site such as Facebook and Instagram. Then encourage them to join you.
Improve your mindset. Walking gives you time to listen to yourself. Mindset is a set of beliefs that influence how you make sense of the world and yourself. It affects how you think, feel, and behave in any given situation. Do you have a fixed or growth mindset? Mindset plays a role in how you deal with life’s challenges. Pay attention to your thoughts and the words used by your inner voice. Replace negative thoughts with positive thoughts to build a growth mindset.
Watch my Video: Walking and Creativity Video | Walking Inspiration
Enjoy the meditative benefits of a longer walk. Meditation can be defined as an intention that encourages a heightened state of awareness and focus. The rhythmic motion of walking has a hypnotic effect that is conducive to achieving a meditative state.
Walk along a quiet route
Pay attention to how your body feels as you swing your arms in rhythm with your foot-fall
Notice your thoughts
Focus on your breathing
Try the 4-3 breathing pattern (see #4)
Reduce anxiety. Walking encourages mood stability. Scientists have promoted exercise as a treatment for depression and anxiety-related disorders for years. Studies of daily yoga and meditation have shown shrinkage of the amygdala, a deep-brain structure strongly linked to the processing of stress, fear, and anxiety. A smaller amygdala means a lower rate of concern and worry and a heightened sense of calm, allowing us to concentrate on the task at hand. Exercise is as effective as antidepressants for patients with major depressive disorders. Exercise is essential in relapse prevention. The increase in serotonin production (happy mood neurotransmitters) during exercise is responsible for the alleviation of chronic depression. Exercise helps normalize sleep which is known to be protective to the brain.
More time to let your creativity shine through.
A 2014 study from Stanford University has shown that people are much more creative when they walk around than sitting still. In the study, 176 college students completed certain creative thinking tasks.
In this study, the authors used an experiment known as Guilford's Alternative Uses Task.
The participants were tasked with listing as many alternative uses for a common object as they could. For instance, a knife could be used to spread butter, cut bread, stab someone, or flick peas. The answers were then scored on originality, the number of ideas, and details.
Students performed this task in a few different variations. Either sitting indoors or sitting outdoors, or walking on a treadmill indoors, or walking outside.
The study found that when people were walking, either on the treadmill or outdoors, they were 60% more creative than when sitting around.
Overall, 81% of the participants saw an increase in creativity when they were walking.
What's more, when the participants took a second test after walking, they were still more creative, showing the positive effects of walking continued even after they sat down again.
More "thinking time" to allow your problem-solving ability to work through several options on the way to the best solution.
More photo opportunities. Every cellphone now serves a double purpose as an excellent photo/video camera. Taking pictures on the road has never been easier. Just point and click. You can set up your camera to upload the images to a cloud hosting like Dropbox. Photography is such a big part of my walks that I include two pages of my favorite images in every edition of my Walking Inspiration newsletter. Sign up for your free copy!
Increase your educational opportunities by listening to podcasts, audiobooks, and personal development programs. Walking gives you plenty of time to catch up on your interests via audiobooks and podcasts. Most local libraries have a service available to allow you to download audiobooks directly to your smartphone. Ramp up your knowledge base with Blinkist, which condenses bestselling books into easily digestible quick listens. Each chapter is called a Blink, and you can listen to most Blinks in 15 minutes or less. Blinkist is the fastest way to digest a wide range of topics. Imagine the benefits you'll receive with listening to 4 or more Blinks on your next long walk. The App Audible allows you to download full versions of bestselling books. Some of my most memorable walks involved listening to audiobooks as the miles passed by quickly.
Spend more time with loved ones. Quality time spent with loved ones is nature's stress reliever. Besides good conversation, hugs and kisses and holding hands release oxytocin (the feel-good hormone) and lower blood pressure and cortisol levels (the stress hormone).
The mid-walk turnaround. You are halfway there, and your ideas and creativity are flowing. With your feel-good hormones on overdrive, make it a point to stop at someplace quiet like a coffee shop, library, or park where you can sit quietly and capture those thoughts in a notebook or on your smartphone app. Download to your smartphone my quarterly Walking Inspiration Newsletter and read it during this creative time. Carry note pad and pen and capture those creative ideas.
Live longer. Older adults who lose mobility are less likely to remain living at home; have higher rates of disease, disability, hospitalization, and death; and have poorer quality of life. Make it your mission to walk daily; the longer, the better for a long life full of purpose and passion.
So, get out your local map or get on Map Pedometer and start planning to “go long”. Your body, mindset, family and friends will thank you.
Please drop me a note about your favorite long walk benefit. With your permission, I’ll feature you and your route in an upcoming issue of Walking Inspiration or on this website.
Lastly, I’ve released my complete Walking for Health and Fitness Walking Program. The program has four main components: The first step is to clearly define what is most important to you in taking control of your health and fitness. The second step is setting fitness goals. Step three is develop solid fitness habits. Most important is the fourth step; holding yourself accountable. Click this link to learn more and change your life one step at a time.
Walk on,
Frank S. Ring
