The Super Simple Key To Living a Happier, Healthier and Longer Life
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What if I told you that you could live a happier, healthier and even longer life – and that the way to do it was super easy? Well, it’s true. Multiple studies have shown that one simple thing can improve your physical and mental health and even help you to live longer.
Walking More Is the Key to a Better Life
You don’t have to get into CrossFit or Peloton or stress over always eating “clean” to live a healthier life. Just getting the recommended amount of weekly physical activity can vastly improve your overall wellness.
The CDC recommends two days each week of muscle training activity and 150 minutes per week of physical activity.
Keep in mind that muscle training doesn’t have to be strength training if that’s not your thing. It could be gardening, sports, cooking, housework, child care, dancing or just using the stairs more. And your 150 minutes of physical activity (a.k.a. your cardio) could simply be walking.
Yes, Walking Counts as Exercise!
Neuroscientist and walking aficionado Shane O’Mara points out that some people don’t think walking counts as real exercise, but that that’s a “terrible mistake.”
He goes on to say:
“What you see if you get people to wear activity monitors is that because they engage in an hour of really intense activity, they engage in much less activity afterwards … what we need to be is much more generally active over the course of the day than we are.”
That’s right, walking a little each day beats overdoing it at the gym by a long shot.
Walking Is Easy and Accessible
O’Hara isn’t opposed to strenuous exercise at all. He just thinks that walking is a more accessible activity. “You don’t need to bring anything other than comfy shoes and a rain jacket. You don’t have to engage in lots of preparation; stretching, warm-up, warm-down …”
That’s what I love about walking, too – you can easily make it part of your routine.
How Walking More Improves Your Health, Happiness and Overall Wellness
Walking More Improves Your Physical Health
If you’re sitting there thinking about your hectic schedule, 150 minutes might sound like a lot, but it’s really not. 150 minutes per week could be broken down into just 30 minutes a day, five times a week (or however you want to do it, of course).
You could go on a daily walk or just try to incorporate a little more walking throughout your day. You can do this by walking to work if possible or getting off the bus one stop earlier. If you work from home, you might invest in a treadmill desk or make calls while on the treadmill.
Taking a walk around the neighborhood in the morning or around lunch time is good for more than just giving yourself a break. Walks can give you time to think things through, plan out your day and, if you work in a creative field, come up with new ideas. But one thing is certain – walking at least 150 minutes per week improves your physical health, meaning you’ll feel better.
And if you want to lose weight (or just avoid gaining it), walking is the way to go. A study published in “JAMA Internal Medicine” found that a 30-minute daily walk “is enough to promote sustained weight management and avoid packing on extra pounds.”
Related: How To Stick to Your Fitness Plan: 5 Tips for Staying Motivated
Walking More Improves Your Mental Health
A 2019 study linked regular walking to improved mental health. The findings showed a 26% decrease in odds for becoming depressed for each major increase in objectively measured physical activity. Researchers from another study found that walking for one hour per day can cut your risk for depression down by 25%.
Another study published in “Gerontology and Geriatric Medicine” that tracked nearly 5,000 older adults aged 65 and older found that moderate leisure walking promotes better overall mental health.
Walking Makes You More Smarter and More Creative
A 2014 study from Stanford found that “creative thinking improves while a person is walking and shortly thereafter.”
This has been shown to be true for many famous creative and innovative people throughout history. Steve Jobs, the late co-founder of Apple, “was known for his walking meetings. Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg has also been seen holding meetings on foot.”
O’Mara says:
“The prolific writer and thinker Bertrand Russell said that walking was integral to his work. Likewise, the Irish mathematician William Rowan Hamilton, who pondered a single problem on his daily walks for seven years, eventually inventing a number system called quaternions, without which we couldn’t make electric toothbrushes or mobile phones.”
Walking More Improves Your Personality
A 2018 study “tracked participants’ activity levels and personality traits over 20 years, and found that those who moved the least showed malign personality changes, scoring lower in the positive traits: openness, extraversion and agreeableness.”
Walking More Helps You Live Longer
Multiple studies have found that increased physical activity can help us to live longer. A 2023 review of some of these studies found that “every 500 daily steps taken were associated with a 7% decreased risk in death from cardiovascular causes, and that every 1,000 daily steps taken were associated with a 15% decreased risk of death from all causes. Significant reduction in all-cause mortality was seen at 4,000 steps, and even 2,500 steps per day provided considerable health benefit.”
Walking regularly is even more important as we get older. I-Min Lee, a professor in the Department of Epidemiology at the T.H. Chan School of Public Health at Harvard, led research that found that “older women who walked at least 4,400 steps each day had greater longevity than those who walked less.”
To Be Happier and Healthier, Exercise More – And Recover at Sage Blossom Massage
Improved wellness starts with getting enough physical activity, but it doesn’t end there. Take care of your body throughout your fitness journey by recovering after your workout at Sage Blossom Massage. By giving yourself the proper time to recover, you can improve your performance and allow your body to heal itself before your next session.
Salt Therapy helps to reduce inflammation, which can cause swelling, soreness and pain. Massage Therapy can soothe aching muscles and promote deep feelings of rest and relaxation.
And, as always, to live your best and most fulfilling life, take care of your physical, emotional, mental and spiritual wellness.
We want you to feel good!
Are you ready to experience the health and mood boosting benefits we offer?
Book your recovery session today.
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