3 Life-Changing Benefits That Happen When You Prioritize a Daily Walk
When it comes to exercise and overall health, there is this stigma that we have to sweat or have a hard workout for anything to be beneficial. Sayings like “If you’re not sore then you didn’t do enough” or “if you’re not dying you didn’t go hard enough” get thrown around quite a bit.
As a society, we’ve overlooked the benefits of walking- simply moving our bodies. It seems “too easy” or like it’s not enough.
As a whole, we’re a pretty sedentary nation. We have desk jobs or work from home, typing away on our couch. 30 min- 1 hr of intense exercise a few times a week is great, but doesn’t quite contain the benefits of moving our bodies more.
Research shows there are three main benefits of walking daily. And these three benefits are enough to change your overall health without having to take expensive supplements, require a lot of time from your day, or a fancy gym.
Walking is a stress management tool.[1]
Chronic stress is detrimental to our health because we can live under it and not notice its effects until it’s too late. Here are some “small” but negative effects of high cortisol levels that could be keeping you from feeling your best:
- Blood sugar swings throughout the day
- Constantly tired even when you get 8–10 hours of sleep
- Random mood swings
- Needing coffee/caffeine to get through the day
- Getting sick often
- Problems concentrating, remembering things, or having brain fog
- The body is inflamed or puffy
- Waking up in the morning not feeling refreshed
- Workouts wear you out rather than energize you
- Waking up in the middle of the night a lot
- Cravings for salty and sugary foods
If you’ve noticed a few of these, you are dealing with chronically high cortisol levels. Leaving it as is and living that way will drastically affect your hormones in the long run.
It will make it harder to lose body fat, fight off disease, and live a life free of aches, pains, and injuries.
Fortunately– you can do something about it. Implement walking daily and you can reduce the stress on your body.
Research shows that walking daily has restorative effects on cortisol levels. And it’s even more effective if you can walk in nature!
Walking keeps the insides healthy. [2]
One of the easiest things to ignore is internal health- because we can’t see it! There are habits we do to try and take care of things, like taking supplements, eating a healthy diet, and getting a yearly check-up.
But it’s also easy to ignore until there is a lot of pain or discomfort. Usually, by then something is really wrong.
Living a sedentary lifestyle is a large contributor to declining internal health. Chronic disease is taking over the nation because we’ve stopped moving our bodies day to day.
Research shows that not only does walking reduce anxiety and tension in the body, but it can also reduce the risk of chronic disease. Walking daily improves cholesterol profiles and controls hypertension — two of the things that this nation is struggling with.
It even improves cardiovascular fitness (so yes- you can get fit by walking!)
So while we can’t see it- working on internal health is important for longevity and quality of life. A healthy inside will show on the outside!
Walking improves body composition. [3]
The most popular benefit- because we can see it!
When it comes to weight loss, we tend to overcomplicate things. We want a pill, a supplement, or a quick 30-day diet to “fix” our bodies. We think there is a perfect solution out there that we can pay for– we just have to find it.
It’s easy to get into a cycle of trying a very restrictive cleanse or fad diet for a few weeks, finding out it’s not sustainable, getting frustrated at not being able to enjoy life, and then going right back to old habits.
We hear about a new pill or new cleanse the next month, then give it another go. This cycle never actually results in the body composition change that we want.
Here’s why: in order for a body to be lean or “toned” it needs to have more muscle than fat. Muscle was made to expand and contract (it’s how we take a step or type with our fingers). Fat (adipose tissue) is just storage space. It doesn’t have to move in order to “thrive” in the body.
So if we’re sedentary for most of the day, we’re setting ourselves up to be a fat storage system rather than a body thriving with muscle.
We know we need to exercise- but not having time to make it to a gym is an easy excuse we allow into our lives. We are busy people! We like to fill every hour of our day working for others and putting our own health on the back burner.
But, if we are able to walk for 30 minutes a day, we can decrease our stress, increase our energy, health, and digestion, AND work on body composition at the same time.
Start small! Work in a 15-minute walk every morning or every evening after dinner. Get in the habit of doing something. Then work up from there to 30 minutes a day until it becomes a foundational habit for your lifestyle. I promise you will love the benefits it brings!
One last thing to help you out: a free 1-month meal plan!
You can download the meal plan here.
It will give you the nutritious jumpstart needed to aid in recovery and energy when starting to build those foundational health habits.
I’d love to hear from you! Email me with any questions at copybymeag@gmail.com
Visit my website: here!
- Olafsdottir, G., Cloke, P., Schulz, A., van Dyck, Z., Eysteinsson, T., Thorleifsdottir, B., & Vögele, C. (2018). Health Benefits of Walking in Nature: A Randomized Controlled Study Under Conditions of Real-Life Stress. Environment and Behavior.
- Rippe JM, Ward A, Porcari JP, Freedson PS. Walking for Health and Fitness. JAMA. 1988;259(18):2720–2724. doi:10.1001/jama.1988.03720180046031
- Kim CS, Kang SY, Nam JS, Cho MH, Park J, Park JS, Nam JY, Yoon SJ, Ahn CW, Cha BS, Lim SK, Kim KR, Lee HC. The Effects of Walking Exercise Program on BMI, Percentage of Body Fat and Mood State for Women with Obesity. J Korean Soc Study Obes. 2004;13(2):132–140.
