To walk literally means to move the legs and feet at a regular pace. Nature has provided us 2 legs to walk for all our needs. Our ancestors used to walk long distances searching for food and other needs. In this era of technical advancement, people, mostly affluent ones, have minimized walking. One would walks only up to the car in the garage or available transport and from one room to another at home. Due to this restricted physical activity, mankind has started suffering from obesity and its resultant diseases. Of all the physical activity, walking is the easiest, economical and beneficial and pleasurable. For any other exercise like sports, swimming, gym, e.t.c. you need to go to some place, buy some apparatus or pay money for using it. But for walking you need nothing, except the willingness to step out. Maybe a pair of good sports shoes maybe needed but it is not necessary. Walking can be done with any type of comfortable foot wear and even without it. Walking done 20 to 30 minutes every day makes one feel light and fresh. Sweating induced cleans the grime of the body, thus adding a glow to the face. Brisk walking helps to reduce extra weight, remove the bulge and flab from the middle and thighs. It also helps to maintain these changes. Apart from these apparent benefits, walking tones up the muscles of legs and hips. One who is habituated to regular walking usually does not suffer from stiffness of joints of legs as compared to other people. It also helps to build up the overall physical stamina of the individual. It is also beneficial for the internal organs of the body. Regular walking tones up the lungs and heart and improve their functioning. They get adapted to work against stress, which is useful in the long run with advancing age for any person. Bowels get toned up and intestinal motility is enhanced. This helps to prevent constipation. In fact many people drink 2 to 3 glasses of water first thing in the morning and go out for a long brisk walk. This they do to ensure good cleansing of the bowels and prevent constipation and its resultant problems. It is beneficial for patients of hypertension and diabetes to take up regular walking. With walking on a daily basis, their diabetes and high blood pressure becomes controlled to the extent that they no longer need medicines. Even if needed, they can do with minimum doses of medicines. This helps in avoiding dependence on medicines and their adverse effects. Patients of heart diseases also benefit from walking as their heart gets slowly acclimatized to physical activity. Walking does not induce any stress on the heart. Only condition is that it should be done only till one is comfortable. Distance walked should be increased gradually over days. Walking is good not only for physical fitness but also mental fitness. While walking, you feel fresh and get ample time to ponder over any pending work or problem. Try to activate your mind while walking. This can be done by trying to recollect what you have read or trying to focus on some issue needing to be solved, while walking. If you find that difficult, just count forwards and backwards up to 10 or 100.You will realize very soon, how clearly your mind works and focuses very well on the work to be done. Cases of depression have known to improve, when they start walking regularly. While walking one can see and appreciate nature more. They can socialize with other people. This provides much needed human interaction which is rapidly declining in this era of electronic advancement and frivolous formalities. If somebody is not free to go for walking in the morning or evening, he or she can walk at any time of the day. Instead of using a transport, one can walk to a destination where some work has to be done. Thus it can be seen that there are many benefits of walking, provided it is done regularly. There is certainly no harm. Therefore get started now and walk your way to good health. –rachna212002@yahoo.co.uk
