HEALTH PLUS MED­ICAL COR­RE­SPON­DENT

At your last vis­it to the doc­tor, you may have re­ceived one of the most im­por­tant pre­scrip­tions of your life, one that on­ly you can fill at a nom­i­nal cost: ex­er­cise. Or it may be one of your New Year res­o­lu­tions. But how do you be­gin? If you have nev­er had a for­mal ex­er­cise pro­gramme, or your ex­er­cise rou­tine lapsed over the years be­cause of ill­ness, changes in sched­ules, in­creas­ing de­mands dur­ing the pan­dem­ic; the idea of start­ing now may seem daunt­ing. What kind of ex­er­cise should you do and how much? How can you be sure you will ob­tain the health ben­e­fits?

Health Plus recog­nis­es those con­cerns and will share help­ful hacks that will ease you in­to an ex­er­cise rou­tine. To­day we start with: WALK­ING. Putting one foot in front of the oth­er is a sim­ple way to trig­ger a cas­cade of health ben­e­fits.

Is walk­ing too bor­ing?

Just one prob­lem: some peo­ple find walk­ing bor­ing. Bore­dom may di­min­ish your mo­ti­va­tion and in­ter­est in ex­er­cis­ing. Be­fore that hap­pens, mix up your reg­i­men with dif­fer­ent types of walk­ing that max­imise phys­i­cal, men­tal, and emo­tion­al health ben­e­fits.

Reg­u­lar brisk walks help low­er LDL (bad) cho­les­terol; con­trol blood sug­ar; and re­duce the risk for high blood pres­sure, heart dis­ease, stroke, and di­a­betes. Brisk walks al­so strength­en mus­cles, burn calo­ries, and lift your mood. What’s more, it eas­es arthri­tis and pre­serves in­de­pen­dence while trim­ming your waist­line. Put sim­ply, ex­er­cise helps you feel bet­ter, look great, and live a longer, more joy­ful life.

What’s the rec­om­mend­ed time?

An up­date to the Phys­i­cal Ac­tiv­i­ty Guide­lines may mo­ti­vate you to move a lit­tle more. The new guide­lines (2018) by Jour­nal of the Amer­i­can Med­ical As­so­ci­a­tion (JA­MA) break from the old rule that phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty had to be ac­cu­mu­lat­ed in bouts of at least 10 min­utes to count to­ward your week­ly to­tal. Now the ev­i­dence shows it does not mat­ter how long an ex­er­cise ses­sion lasts; it’s the to­tal vol­ume of ac­tiv­i­ty that counts, even if it’s in short bursts. While, up­hold­ing pre­vi­ous rec­om­men­da­tions that urged at least 150 min­utes per week of mod­er­ate-in­ten­si­ty ac­tiv­i­ty, the new guide­lines means you can jog to your mail­box, do jump­ing jacks dur­ing TV com­mer­cials, or skip to your car in the park­ing lot; any bursts of ac­tiv­i­ty that get your heart and lungs pump­ing will count to­ward the week­ly goal, and they will con­tribute to en­hanced health.

An in­ter­val-train­ing walk

While all brisk walk­ing is good aer­o­bic ac­tiv­i­ty, you will boost phys­i­cal ben­e­fits even more if you in­cor­po­rate oth­er ex­er­cis­es in your reg­i­men.

Adding brief bursts of speed dur­ing a brisk walk boosts car­dio fit­ness. “You speed up, push your in­ten­si­ty, re­cov­er, and then pick up the pace again,” says a Har­vard fit­ness con­sul­tant. It’s rec­om­mend­ed to time your­self for 15, 30, or 60 sec­onds at the height­ened in­ten­si­ty and then dou­ble that amount of time to re­cov­er at your nor­mal pace. “If you need longer to re­cov­er, that’s fine too. When you feel ready, pick up the in­ten­si­ty and go faster.” If you don’t want to time your­self, use land­marks: speed up as you walk past two hous­es, go slow­er for four hous­es, and re­peat.

Med­i­ta­tive walk­ing

The repet­i­tive na­ture of walk­ing makes it a nat­ur­al ac­tiv­i­ty for in­cor­po­rat­ing med­i­ta­tion or self-re­flec­tion. Try one of these:

A breath-fo­cused walk. The com­bi­na­tion of breath­ing and step­ping cre­ates a rhythm that helps qui­et the mind. Breath­ing and count­ing are key, so match your foot­steps to your in­hala­tions and ex­ha­la­tions. Take four steps as you in­hale, take four steps as you ex­hale. You can length­en those counts as you re­lax.

A mind­ful walk. Use walk­ing as an op­por­tu­ni­ty to be­come more mind­ful. Re­al­ly be present in your walk. Pay at­ten­tion to what’s go­ing on around you and feel the breeze and the sun on your body. Pay at­ten­tion to what you are hear­ing, the birds chirp­ing, the rus­tle of leaves. Mind­ful­ness is a cog­ni­tive ex­er­cise that adds calm to your dai­ly rou­tines.

So­cial walk­ing

Think about walk­ing as a time for so­cial in­ter­ac­tion, even while main­tain­ing phys­i­cal dis­tanc­ing and mask wear­ing. A walk with a fam­i­ly mem­ber can even be bond­ing time, Some pos­si­bil­i­ties in­clude:

A chat­ty walk. In­stead of sit­ting and talk­ing to catch up with loved ones, chat dur­ing a walk in the morn­ing, af­ter­noon, or evening. The more you walk and talk, the more ex­er­cise you will fit in­to your day.

A heart-to-heart walk. If you need to have a tough con­ver­sa­tion with some­one, walk­ing can make it eas­i­er. Walk­ing re­lax­es your body, and you don’t need to make eye con­tact with the oth­er per­son when you’re walk­ing, there­by mak­ing it a per­fect ses­sion for heal­ing.

Tex­ting while walk­ing is NOT ad­vised

Yes, tex­ting is a form of com­mu­ni­ca­tion, but we rec­om­mend you avoid tex­ting dur­ing a walk; the dis­trac­tion can lead to a fall or keep you from see­ing on­com­ing traf­fic.

Con­sid­er your tech­nique

- Turn­ing your nor­mal walk in­to a fit­ness stride re­quires good pos­ture and pur­pose­ful move­ments. Ide­al­ly, here is how you’ll look when you’re walk­ing:

- Your head is up. You’re look­ing for­ward, not at the ground.

- Your neck, shoul­ders and back are re­laxed, not stiffly up­right.

- You’re swing­ing your arms freely with a slight bend in your el­bows. A lit­tle pump­ing with your arms is ok.

- Your stom­ach mus­cles are slight­ly tight­ened and your back is straight, not arched for­ward or back­ward.

- You are walk­ing smooth­ly, rolling your foot from heel to toe.

Don’t for­get: Warm­ing up and cool­ing down

The best way to warm up is to walk slow­ly. Start off each walk at a leisure­ly pace to give your mus­cles time to warm up, and then pick up the speed. Af­ter­wards, gen­tly stretch your leg mus­cles, par­tic­u­lar­ly your calves and front and back thighs. Stretch­es should be held for about 20 sec­onds. If you feel any pain, ease off the stretch. Don’t bounce or jolt, or you could over­stretch mus­cle tis­sue and cause mi­cro­scop­ic tears, which lead to mus­cle stiff­ness and ten­der­ness.

Footwear for walk­ing

The wrong type of shoe or walk­ing ac­tion can cause foot or shin pain, blis­ters and in­juries to soft tis­sue. Make sure your shoes are com­fort­able, with ap­pro­pri­ate heel and arch sup­ports. Take light, easy steps and make sure your heel touch­es down be­fore your toes. When­ev­er pos­si­ble, walk on grass rather than con­crete to help ab­sorb the im­pact.

Stay mo­ti­vat­ed

Start­ing a walk­ing pro­gramme takes ini­tia­tive. Stick­ing with it takes com­mit­ment. To stay mo­ti­vat­ed:

Set your­self up for suc­cess. Start with a sim­ple goal, such as, “I’ll take a 5- or 10-minute walk dur­ing my lunch break.” When your 5- or 10-minute walk be­comes a habit, set a new goal, such as, “I’ll walk for 20 min­utes af­ter work.”

Take missed days in stride. If you find your­self skip­ping your dai­ly walks, don’t give up. Re­mind your­self how good you feel when you in­clude phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty in your dai­ly rou­tine, and then get back on track.

Once you take that first step, you are on the way to an im­por­tant des­ti­na­tion: op­ti­mis­ing your health.