Too busy to go to the gym? Don\u2019t worry \u2014 you can stay healthy by incorporating at least 15 minutes of fast walking into your everyday routine,\u00a0new research suggests.<\/p>\n
In general, it\u2019s recommended that people commit to 150 minutes of moderate activity per week to see sufficient health benefits, said Dr. Wei Zheng, the study\u2019s corresponding author. <\/p>\n
But if 150 minutes is too difficult to manage, fast walking for a minimum of 15 minutes every day can have the same health benefits.<\/p>\n
Zheng and a team of researchers recruited mostly low-income and Black study participants from 2002 to 2009, according to the study published in the\u00a0American Journal of Preventative Medicine<\/a>. <\/p>\n The nearly 85,000 participants were given a comprehensive questionnaire about their exercise habits, average time spent working out, walking speed and health. Then the participants completed a questionnaire about 16 years later, and the analysis began in 2023.<\/p>\n We know \u201cfast walking is good compared to slow walking,\u201d but there isn\u2019t much research on how many minutes you should spend fast walking on average, said Zheng, director of the Vanderbilt Epidemiology Center and the Anne Potter Wilson Professor in Medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee.<\/p>\n On average, study participants who fast walked for at least 15 minutes every day\u00a0saw a nearly 20% reduction in premature death\u00a0compared with a 4% reduction among participants who walked slowly for a total of more than three hours a day.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve actually known for quite a long time that walking speed correlates with outcomes, meaning the faster you walk, the better you do. And it certainly makes sense, because you can imagine, somebody who\u2019s in really bad shape is probably not going to be able to walk very quickly,\u201d said Dr. Andrew Freeman, director of cardiovascular prevention and wellness at National Jewish Health in Denver. He was not involved in the study.<\/p>\n How walking can impact your health<\/p>\n Walking has health benefits, such as\u00a0managing weight<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0sugar intake<\/a>, reducing the risk of\u00a0cancer<\/a>,\u00a0easing joint pain<\/a>, and boosting\u00a0immune function<\/a>.<\/p>\n Health experts know that when people are exercising regularly, blood vessels can relax and dilate a bit better. And then we also know that exercise is quite good for cholesterol, so it seems to lower cholesterol, and then overall, it reduces the risk of cancer and things that would otherwise hurt people,\u201d Freeman said.<\/p>\n Walking daily can also lower the risk of dementia or cognitive decline in people predisposed to developing Alzheimer\u2019s,\u00a0according to recent research<\/a>.<\/p>\n Engaging in daily physical activity, such as walking, promotes\u00a0better sleep<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0reduces inflammation<\/a>, which improves brain structure, according to the\u00a0Piedmont Medical Center<\/a>\u00a0in South Carolina.<\/p>\n \u201cI want to emphasise that these exercises, no matter slow or fast, all confirm some benefit,\u201d Zheng said. \u201cBut what we find is that fast walking as little as 15 minutes a day confirms substantiated benefits.\u201d<\/p>\n Fast walking has been found to have specific benefits, such as decreasing risk of\u00a0heart failure<\/a>,\u00a0arrhythmias<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0type 2 diabetes<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201c(T)he thought is that exercise has a very big effect on blood pressure, as you may know, and blood pressure, it is one of the more exponential risk factors that we have, for roughly every 20 points blood pressure goes above 120 (what is considered normal or healthy), the risk of a cardiac event roughly doubles,\u201d Freeman said. \u201cSo, it\u2019s a super potent and exponential risk factor, and we know that regular exercise lowers that.\u201d<\/p>\n Get your heart pumping<\/p>\n In general, you can tell you\u2019re fast walking when you\u2019re able to talk but not sing, according to the United Kingdom\u2019s\u00a0National Health Service<\/a>.<\/p>\n Alternatively, you can increase your walking pace by a couple of steps and track it with a metronome, according to a\u00a0July study.<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cI usually recommend that they get up before work, and they go for a brisk walk or a bike or a swim, or they do some high-intensity interval training, whatever it is that they\u2019re into,\u201d Freeman said. People can go to \u201ca rec center, or they walk outside, if it is safe, or whatever it may be, and just weave it into their day.\u201d<\/p>\n Following good\u00a0walking form<\/a>, such as standing tall with your shoulders back and swinging your arms, can help prevent backaches, make it easy to breath and keep you balanced.<\/p>\n \u201cWalking is a full body movement. It is not just about your lower body. It\u2019s not just one step in front of the one foot in front of the other,\u201d said Dana Santas, a certified strength and conditioning specialist and mind-body coach in professional sports, in a\u00a0previous\u00a0article<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cYour arm swing is a huge part involved in the mechanics of walking. So, you want to have an arm swing that\u2019s coordinated with your foot movement, so it\u2019s opposing,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n Want to take it up a notch? When doing any form of exercise, try to practice conscious or nasal breathing, which is when you inhale through your nose and exhale through your mouth. This helps regulate\u00a0blood pressure<\/a>\u00a0and can prevent\u00a0hypertension<\/a>, according to Santas.<\/p>\n DISCLAIMER: The Views, Comments, Opinions, Contributions and Statements made by Readers and Contributors on this platform do not necessarily represent the views or policy of Multimedia Group Limited.<\/p>\n DISCLAIMER: The Views, Comments, Opinions, Contributions and Statements made by Readers and Contributors on this platform do not necessarily represent the views or policy of Multimedia Group Limited.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Too busy to go to the gym? Don\u2019t worry \u2014 you can stay healthy by incorporating at least…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":75179,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[49,48,407,84],"class_list":{"0":"post-75178","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fitness","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-fitness","11":"tag-health"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75178"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75178\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}