5 Reasons to go for a Walk Every Day

Getting away from it all to go for a walk is one of the joys of life for most. Whether it's up a mountain or around the block, walking is good for both your physical and mental health.

Going for a walk is good exercise

Twenty years ago, I was an avid marathon runner. But then I developed late-onset bipolar disorder and was advised that marathon running wasn’t the best thing for me because the training regime encouraged obsessiveness, and so mania.

So, I stopped running completely, and due to a combination of lethargy and medication I ultimately became very fat and unfit.

During Lockdown I determined I would take myself in hand to do something about this, but I quickly realised I couldn’t just jump back into running – my knees would creak, and my spine would proverbially buckle from my excess weight.

And anyway, I was twenty years older.

So, I decided to go for a walk for two hours each day instead.

Well, eighteen months later, and with a combination of walking exercise and a strict dietary regime, I lost sixteen kilos.

I put this down to a combination of walking and diet. But I had a little trick I used to great effect. Whenever I would have the itch to eat a biscuit or a piece of cake, I would pull on my walking boots instead and go for a fifteen-minute walk around the block.

By the time I got home, the itch had gone, and I had clocked up another mile on my walking chart, too.

Without walking, I would never have lost all that weight.

And I’m a lot fitter, besides.

Going for a walk is good for your mental health

Whenever I feel anxious or that the day’s tasks are set to overwhelm me, I have a regimen. First of all, I select the most burdensome of the tasks – or the one that is causing me the most distress – and I grab it by the scruff of the neck and complete it.

Then I go for a long walk and think about what I have accomplished and how the rest of the day’s tasks will be similarly accomplished when I return.

Sometimes one of the tasks I have yet to accomplish is writing up one of my regular posts or other writing. I will think about that, and organise it in my mind, devising plot points and structural foundations so that by the time I return home I am just bursting to write.

There is no doubt that going for a walk is good for your mental health. Often the sense of panic subsides, and you get everything into perspective.

Going for a walk is good for community

Often, if you regularly go for a walk in the environs of your neighbourhood, you get to know people on the route that you might not otherwise have encountered.

On my walks, I chat with neighbours, shopkeepers, security guards, tradespeople, publicans, all sorts of people I now know.

That all adds to your sense of community, which in turn is excellent for your mental health.

Going for a walk in your community encourages this in a way that driving your car couldn’t.

You commune with nature when going for a walk

Often my daily walk takes me on to Wimbledon Common (yes, that of Wombles fame). On the Common, there are lots of forested areas, ponds and grasslands.

It’s a great way to engage with local birdlife, and pondlife such as newts and frogs and insects. It’s also a good aiming point for my two-hour walk, because the Common is about 3 miles away.

Often, after communing with nature for forty minutes, I will wander into my local pub and have a glass of tap water with lime cordial just to refresh me.

There again, I chat with the publican and a few patrons and look out the window at the dog-walkers on the common.

You have space to think when going for a walk

Going for a walk gives you an opportunity to engage in mindfulness. You can purge yourself of all the rubbish of the day and then think constructively and objectively about thoughts you deliberately let in.

It’s when my mind is in this state I think up my headlines for my next few Medium posts. If I like a headline I pause for a minute and note it down on my Smartphone so I don’t have the stress of remembering it and I can move on to the next headline.

Brain space while walking is a great gift, and it’s no surprise that Stephen King goes for walks to plot out his stories.

So, take a leaf out of the master’s book and go walking to be creative.

Takeaways

Walking has lots of benefits. It has one more benefit in that it is environmentally friendly.

I remember a long time ago when I worked in Austin, Texas I decided to walk from the office to the Post Office which was only two blocks away.

Everyone was shocked and offered me a lift in their cars. Being a good Brit, I declined and walked anyway. I’m guessing in those days everyone thought me a bit eccentric.

But that sort of forbearance is the beginning of environmental responsibility.

So always remember, going for a walk isn’t just good for you – it’s good for the planet, too.