Most people can walk, however, most people don’t. Whatever the reasons are, I can tell you from experience that more people should take up walking. Here are six benefits of walking and why you should go for a good long walk.
1. The number one objection that you will hear from people is that they don’t have time for walking. How do you find an hour out of your day to take a walk? Well, all I can say is that I’m actually a pretty busy guy.
I run a busy business but I still manage to find time to walk. When? For me, it’s early morning. Sometime between 6am-7am. I get up, put on the appropriate clothing, and head out the door.
The amount of time that takes to prepare for a walk is under five minutes. I have a quick bite or a banana on the way out the door, this will save you quite a bit of time. Walk a half an hour in one direction, walk a half an hour in the other direction. If you can’t find time in the morning, do it during one of your favourite television shows that you can record and watch at another time.
2. It’s a great weight loss program. A lot of people think that walking doesn’t expend a lot of energy, when in fact it is one of the most efficient ways to lose weight.
All you have to do is walk one and half times your normal walking pace to begin with, eventually ramping that up to two times you’re average walking pace. When you do this, you will speed up your heart rate, and keep it at a consistent rate for the duration for the hour.
How much weight can you lose? Based on my experience and of course, my metabolism may be a little different than yours; if you walk five hours a week, you can lose as much as ten pounds every two weeks, naturally, while gaining strength at the same time.
3. I think the biggest benefit to walking is; time out from the world. Many people suffer from stress, worry, anxiety, concern, frustration and even anger. A good walk gives you time out from life, time away from the things that are bothering you.
It’s like mediation, a rhythmic meditation. All you need to have is a direction, breathe and keep pace.
4. Many people believe that running or jogging is more effective than the benefits of walking. I’m not going to disagree with that, but I am going to tell you that running and jogging takes a significant amount of energy and becomes a task which unless your addicted to running, usually doesn’t last very long because the mind sees it as a strenuous exercise, whereas walking doesn’t seem that hard.
5. During your walk, multitask a little bit. Think about some of the things you want to do, to accomplish, to succeed at. Very often, during my walks, I think about some of the things I want to do; taking a little digital recorder and thinking out loud.
Then when I get a moment, I transcribe those thoughts and either put them in a document or into my website or even into a book. As a matter of fact, I just wrote a book recently, called suggestology, while walking. This blog post was written while walking.
6. When you get used to it and it becomes part of your habit (it usually takes seventeen to ninety days to make walking a habit), you can begin to realize that a lot can be accomplished during that time.
Yes, I wrote a book, but I also once wrote nine symphonies while walking, in my music career. I once walked across Spain on the famous Camino de Santiago, walking an average of twenty-five kilometers a day for a month and a half.
That my dear friends is a lot of time to think and gather ideas. When I would arrive at my destination for the day, I would take the time to either transcribe the ideas in my head or the ideas that were recorded along the way and I would put them into my little portable laptop and I also had a little two octave keyboard that I would make the music with and put it also into the computer.
I trust that you’re starting to see some of the real benefits of walking, and are ready to give it a try. I would however like it when you do go for a walk, that you find some place that you can either be alone and not among noise and civilization.
Find a trail near your house; you probably won’t have to go that far. Walk around your local school yard if you have to, but find someplace to be alone. What you are going to find is; eventually you’ll look forward to your walk and the benefits of walking, and you’ll make it the focus of your day, rather than an inconvenience.
