{"id":747930,"date":"2026-06-20T02:11:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-20T02:11:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/747930\/"},"modified":"2026-06-20T02:11:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-20T02:11:12","slug":"walking-tips-how-long-to-walk-for-relaxation-mobility-and-fitness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/747930\/","title":{"rendered":"Walking tips: How long to walk for relaxation, mobility and fitness"},"content":{"rendered":"

Walking<\/a> is highly underrated as a way to clear your head<\/a> and move your body<\/a>, yet all it takes is stepping outside the door and putting one foot in front of the other.\u00a0<\/p>\n

There are many benefits to adding walking into your daily or weekly routine, which means you might have a specific reason for pounding the pavement. For some, walking is a way to relax and relieve stress, others might need to focus on keeping their body mobile, and there are those who do it to improve their fitness<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Close-up<\/p>\n

Walking can help you relax, keep your joints and muscles in good condition and increase your fitness.\u00a0iStock<\/p>\n

Those reasons lend themselves to different speeds, lengths of time spent walking, who you do it with and even the location. We spoke to an exercise physiologist, a psychologist and the Heart foundation to find out what we need to know to achieve those walking goals.<\/p>\n

Walking for relaxation<\/p>\n

Physical activity might not be the first thing that comes to mind when you want to relax, but it can work wonders.<\/p>\n

\u201cExercise [in general] is probably one of the most important things you can do, annoyingly, for mental health \u2026 it reduces stress hormone levels, it produces endorphins, it seems to generally regulate mood quite effectively for people,\u201d Dr Kelly Gough, clinical psychologist and President of the Australian Psychological Society, said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo walking does all of those things \u2026 and walking has the benefit that it\u2019s easy to get into; you don\u2019t have to buy any equipment particularly, you don\u2019t have to pay any money \u2026 and you probably have to do it as part of your day anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n

The amount of time you should spend walking for relaxation is largely up to you, but the experts said anything from five to 20 minutes would help you achieve this aim.<\/p>\n

Walking for relaxation doesn\u2019t need a particular intensity or speed, it\u2019s your mind that\u2019s important.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019d be two things to think about; one would be doing it somewhere that\u2019s pleasant where you can engage with the environment around you rather than walking down the side of a busy highway,\u201d Dr Gough said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe other thing is what\u2019s going on in your head. You could be on the walk, and you could be enjoying the walk and being present… Or you could be in your head bitching about your partner and worried about your boss and stressing about your bills, and then it won\u2019t be good.<\/p>\n

\"Happy<\/p>\n

A walk through a park is a brilliant way to relax and clear your mind, plus you’re getting exercise at the same time.\u00a0iStock<\/p>\n

\u201cSo for relaxation you really want to engage with the walk to get out of your head and get into the world that you\u2019re in \u2013 that would be the most important thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Walking for mobility<\/p>\n

Mobility is becoming an increasingly important factor in our ageing society and the one thing that helps maintain it is movement.<\/p>\n

This can be tricky if you\u2019re living with pain and joint and muscle issues, but a five-minute walk is enough to get the benefits.<\/p>\n

\u201cMoving improves circulation to the joints and muscles, so it\u2019s going to take away a lot of those pain feelings that people have by just getting moving and increasing their ability to move more, especially in more difficult situations like walking up a hill or walking upstairs. The more that they do those more difficult walking activities, then the better they\u2019re going to get at it,\u201d Professor Jeff Coombes from the School of Human Movement Studies at the University of Queensland, said.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Walking with another person is a great way to socialise and help you keep a commitment to exercising.\u00a0iStock<\/p>\n

He recommends doing it daily, but if you are sitting a lot you should also try to get up and move around regularly.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019d suggest to people that have got a desk job that they\u2019d get up at least every hour and go for a five-minute walk, even if it is just around the floor of their building or up some stairs to break it up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Walking for fitness<\/p>\n

For anyone that doesn\u2019t have an active lifestyle and wants to improve their fitness, Coombes said walking is \u201cthe number one thing we\u2019d prescribe\u201d.<\/p>\n

The physical activity guidelines for Australians currently recommends 30 minutes most days of the week of moderate to vigorous physical activity, and walking will help you achieve that.<\/p>\n

To know if you are reaching that moderate to vigorous physical activity while walking, Elizabeth Calleja, Senior Advisor Physical Activity at the Heart Foundation, said there are a few things to look out for.<\/p>\n

\"Woman<\/p>\n

The talk\/sing test is one way to tell if you’re walking at a high enough intensity; if you can talk but not sing you’re at the right level.\u00a0iStock<\/p>\n

\u201cAll it means is doing exercise that makes you get your breathing rate up a little bit higher. You should still be able to talk while you\u2019re exercising, you\u2019ll feel a little bit warmer, a little bit sweaty, and that\u2019s where your heart rate is getting up to really help work that heart to build its strength and help with blood flow throughout the body,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

However, for those who haven\u2019t been doing a lot of physical activity, starting small with walking is the best approach and then you can build on that and increase it over time.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere have been studies to show that even doing 10 minutes or more [of physical activity] actually helps to improve cardiovascular fitness,\u201d Calleja said.<\/p>\n

An easy way to get started with walking is combining it with things you\u2019re already doing.<\/p>\n

\u201cWalking\u2019s really great because you can do it anywhere. You can set a designated time to go for a walk in the morning or in a lunch break or in the evening. Or you can get your steps in by parking the car further away, taking the stairs, walking from the bus stop to your destination, or getting off the bus or train a stop earlier to get a little bit of extra walking in,\u201d Calleja said.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019ve already got a walking habit going and want to step it up a notch, you can try adding interval training to your walk, where you increase the speed for short sections.<\/p>\n

Coombes has a great hack for anyone wanting to add interval training to their walking but isn\u2019t sure when to start and stop their high-intensity bursts.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor people walking around their suburbs, around their streets, we give them the challenge of doing a fast walk between one telegraph pole to the next, and then they can do a slow walk to the next one, and then another fast walk between telegraph poles,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

If you don\u2019t have telegraph poles you could find another repeating element in your area to use, such as street lights.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Walking is highly underrated as a way to clear your head and move your body, yet all it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":747931,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[64,63,538,137],"class_list":["post-747930","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fitness","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fitness","tag-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/747930","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=747930"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/747930\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/747931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=747930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=747930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=747930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}