Women and Walking

Dear Readers,

Further to my earlier article on "Immunity Our Indemnity".Today We shall see In detail how does walking in our daily routine helps to augment our immunity power.

Here are some valuable inputs about benefits of walking listed out especially for women. This article is a study conducted by arthritis speciality health group.

12 Benefits of walking 🏃 

What’s not to like about walking? It’s free. It’s easy to do, and it’s easy on the joints. And there’s no question that walking is good for you or not. A University of Tennessee study found that women who walked had less body fat than those who didn’t walk. It also lowers the risk of blood clots, since the calf acts as a venous pump, contracting and pumping blood from the feet and legs back to the heart, reducing the load on the heart. In addition to being an easy aerobic exercise, walking is good for you in many other ways.

 

The Benefits of Walking

1. Improve Circulation

Walking wards off heart disease, brings up the heart rate, lowers blood pressure and strengthens the heart. Post-menopausal women who walk just one to two miles a day can lower their blood pressure by nearly 11 points in 24 weeks. Women who walk 30 minutes a day can reduce their risk of stroke by 20%, and by 40% when they stepped up the pace, according to researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston.

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2. Shore Up Your Bones

Walking can stop the loss of bone mass for those with osteoporosis, according to Michael A. Schwartz, MD, of Plancher Orthopedics & Sports Medicine in New York. In fact, one study of post-menopausal women found that 30 minutes of walking each day reduced their risk of hip fractures by 40%.

3. Enjoy a Longer Life

Research finds that people who exercise regularly in their fifties and sixties are 35% less likely to die over the next eight years than their non-walking counterparts. That number shoots up to 45% less likely for those who have underlying health conditions.
 

4. Lighten Your Mood

Walking releases natural pain­killing endorphins to the body – one of the emotional benefits of exercise. A California State University, Long Beach, study showed that the more steps people took during the day, the better their moods were. 

5. Lose Weight

A brisk 30-minute walk burns 200 calories. Over time, calories burned can lead to pounds dropped.

6. Strengthen Muscles

Walking tones your leg and abdominal muscles – and even arm muscles if you pump them as you walk. This increases your range of motion, shifting the pressure and weight from your joints to your muscles.

7. Improve Sleep

Studies found that women, ages 50 to 75, who took one-hour morning walks, were more likely to relieve insomnia than women who didn’t walk

8. Support Your Joints

The majority of joint cartilage has no direct blood supply. It gets its nutrition from joint fluid that circulates as we move. Movement and compression from  walking “squishes” the cartilage, bringing oxygen and nutrients into the area. 

9. Improve Your Breath

When walking, your breathing rate increases, causing oxygen to travel faster through bloodstream, helping to eliminate waste products and improve your energy level and the ability to heal.
 

10. Slow Down Mental Decline

A study of 6,000 women, ages 65 and older, performed by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, found that age-related memory decline was lower in those who walked more. The women walking 2.5 miles per day had a 17% decline in memory, as opposed to a 25% decline in women who walked less than a half-mile per week.

11. Do More for Longer

Aerobic walking and resistance exercise programs may reduce the incidence of disability in the activities of daily living for people who are older than 65 and have symptomatic OA, a study published in the Journal of Clinical Outcomes Management found.

12. Boosts immune function 

Walking may reduce your risk for developing a cold or the flu.

One study tracked 1,000 adults during flu season. Those who walked at a moderate pace for 30 to 45 minutes a day had 43 percent fewer sick days and fewer upper respiratory tract infections overall.

Their symptoms were also lessened if they did get sick. That was compared to adults in the study who were sedentary.

Conclusion 

In our Indian life style unfortunately women are left with no time to perform walking exercise to keep themselves fit, as both early mornings and evening keeps them engaged busily in home making activities especially cooking and taking care of children they should seriously try to get in a daily walk to reap its health benefits.

For such of those ladies it is more important to see to that their home is equipped with an indoor  Treadmill to practice at their free time there by taking care of their health so as to take care of entire  family inturn. It is the responsibility of  the every family head to see to that women's of their homes are provided with one such equipment  at least.

In the next article we will see benefits of doing pranayama breathing exercise.

Until then Cheers to all

Srikanth Santhanaraman

P.S.Pls. share your valuable comments with your name.