How walking can reverse aging and heal your brain & body!

Most of the people out there underestimate the power of walking without knowing that our bodies are designed for moving, physical activity provides numerous benefits such as lower blood pressure, better regulation of blood sugar, lower resting heart rate, better control of body fat, improved immune function, increased muscular strength and endurance, improved cardiorespiratory functioning, increased flexibility, better joint health, improved mental functioning, and higher quality of sleep. 

People who walk less have a high probability to suffer from depression and anxiety , but nowadays walking is underrated, the following is why walking is underrated;

• It is considered as a lazy form of exercise
• It doesn't hurt and there's no sweating
• We think that intense exercise is the only form of exercise

Studies using activity monitors shows that if you hit about at least 5000-7000 steps a day your all cause mortality drops to about 50-70%, big numbers right? but also bad news is that sitting too much will shorten one’s lifespan, diminish quality of life, and contribute to the development of chronic diseases.

Andy Haslam for The New York Times

People in non-mechanized tribal societies such as those in Africa or South-America do not go for the intense exercises but rather walk (by walking, I mean hella WALK!) and these people are known to have a great metabolic health such that their cholesterol levels are low, inflammatory factors in their blood are very low too with a remarkable cardiac health.

By Johannes Vermeer: 1666-1668

What do you notice from this picture? Well what I see is an artist sitting on a stool drawing a painting of a beautiful woman (I guess), this isn't some sort of coincidence for artists doing this act (sitting on a stool), but rather what this means is that the artists brain remains active throughout the course of drawing the beautiful woman, imagine if artists were painting on luxurious couches, what would happen is that their minds would not be active as an artist on a stool or standing.

Whenever you allow yourself to move you challenge your vestibular system to keep you balanced, hence you allow the gradient of blood pressure on the whole body to change, where when you sit all day your blood might be pooled on your feet only, movement causes blood to flow smoothly (moving can be for few minutes only 5mins,3mins tops), and trust me this shouldn't be hard for you if you really care about your health.

MOVEMENT IS MEDICINE

This statement can be hard to believe for some people, but since this blog is about YOU, then let me break it up to you!

During movement the brain becomes active such the activities done by the brain such as imagination, memory and other important parts of the body are triggered, Did you know? Whenever when you want to stand up your body sways forward and backward which is a positive practice for the brain to be active, just think about how many activities the brain will handle the moment you stand up, listing some of them;

• The brain feels the ground beneath
• If the wind is blowing the brain feels the wind 
• Any danger that is besides you, the brain will determine.

And many more... This means that you have to use different parts of brain areas that are involved in mapping your world, now the moment you move your body produces a molecule called 'myokines' which are really good for building and strengthening muscles but not yet also the brain produces some sort of 'Brain derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF)' which helps keeping the brain cells active.

Oh and by the way, an interesting fact did you know that movement (walking) enhances creativity?. Stephen King the famous novelist was a famous walker, Bertrand Russell the British mathematician and philosopher and the interesting person to me was Ireland's greatest mathematician William Rowan Hamilton (was an astronomer too), he invented the mathematics that nowadays allows image transformations, games engines in computers, (I could talk about him in a whole blog if i would), but shortly he used to take creative walks to figure out his theories and solve most of his problems.

Steve Jobs was regularly known to take his design team to go on walking meetings with him to change their environment and their perspective.

 BRAIN AGING

You can be on your 20's and have a brain age of an 50-year old! (that's kinda funny, but it is true) , I know this can be hard to believe but again, IT IS TRUE however it is not possible to determine the brain age with certainty without some researches. 

                                            (Image credit: Javier Hirschfeld/Getty Images)

Your ability to remember new information peaks in your 20s, and then starts to decline noticeably from your 50s or 60s this is because the hippocampus is one brain region that continues producing new neurons into adulthood, now do you forget a lot?, among the solution to make sure your brain is not aging is to stay active and one way of being active is WALKING.

Among the causes of your brain aging is inactiveness (let me highlight this in red, meaning danger, right?), well some people prefer jogging but something interesting to note is that if you compare people who are jogging slowly vs people who walk fast, well guess who has a better health outcome? the person who walks fast has a better health outcome than a person jogging slowly due to 'cardiac strain' . 

WALKING IN RELATIONSHIP WITH WEIGHT LOSS

A complicated topic, but from research most people think that the recipe to weight loss is eat less and exercise more, well bad news, this recipe won't work. WHY?

Your body is designed such that it fights against weight loss, now when you try to lose weight by cutting down your food supply this slows the body's metabolism which makes it hard to lose wight, now the best advice for losing weight is not cutting their food supply but rather people have to focus on what they're eating and of course exercise.

And since our world is rich on different foods, we have to be more than careful!

HOW TO STEP-UP YOUR ROUTINE 

Again since this blog is about YOU, i'll give you some few ways to step-up your routine and track your walking progress, here are some few ways;

• For people with cars a good practice is that whenever you're going to some place make sure you park a bit far from where you're going, this can add some steps on your daily progress.
• When making a phone call you can try to stand-up and take a few steps while talking, and if it is a long call then this would be a good practice 
• Find walking groups that would inspire you to walk, most people here in Tanzania do this amazing practice by organizing large groups and walking kilometers.
• Finding a walking friend, trust me going on a walk with a friend can be one of the greatest things you'll ever do, sharing ideas and you won't feel bored walking with a friend rather than on your own.
• Before eating a big meal you can go for a walk, and after a big meal too (which will trigger you a good sleep).

These are few ways, feel free to add more ways that you practice to step-up your walking routine on the comment section, I would love to hear what YOU think and your ideas too.

HOW TO TRACK YOUR PROGRESS

I was very eager for this section on my blog, most people do not know how much they walk, well there are tons of apps used to track your walking habit, get a watch that tracks your walking habit and start increasing your steps from the lazy 300 steps to 5000-10000 steps a day, and this must be consistent (day-in, day-out).

Also, it's not a good idea to finish those steps by ONLY just hitting the gym or by ONLY walking on an evening but rather make it a habit and challenge your body regularly.

Another way, which is how I track my walking progress is by using applications where you can share your steps with friends, most of the phones have built in apps where you can share your fitness with friends, I use fitness to share with my two friends and here is what we do (although everyone has different goals);

A screenshot from my phone for today, as you can see one of my friend has accomplished his ring (7045 steps), the second from the list (4558 steps) is me which is weird because most of the time I become the last (these guys WALK).

This is another screenshot which shows my weeks progress, my goal was for 10,000 steps a day but honestly throughout the week I go 4000-6000 steps.

Yeap! she walks!, as of recently i'm sure she was tired but at the bottom of the picture you can see as she goes to about 10,000+ steps everyday and closed her ring for the whole week.

Aren't you inspired?

And yes i would love to hear more from YOU, please send me an email at (qadirmsingi007@gmail.com) or you can leave a comment down below for any suggestion or any additional information.

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