Giant steps: why walking in nature is good for mind, body and soul

Giant steps: why walking in nature is good for mind, body and soul

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again … get outside!

Get outside and get into nature! Get dirty! Soak up the sun, and even the rain!

There are so many physical and psychological benefits of spending time in nature and this article, by Jessica Lee via the Guardian sums just some of them up …

Six weeks after my daughter was born, I found myself on the packed dirt path that runs along the River Cam in Grantchester Meadows. It was seven in the morning and cold. Frost lined every blade of grass, and my breath made clouds in front of me. But it was a bright, sunny day. After weeks of settling into motherhood indoors – unceasing night feeds, tears, and exhaustion – a walk in the sun seemed like the best possible thing to do.

It’s not that I hadn’t been outside in all that time. Most days I’d only gone as far as the end of my neighbourhood, on short strolls to give the baby some fresh air. Before parental leave, I’d been busy in my job as a nature and travel writer, often taking long walks in the name of work – and, if I was honest, I really missed it. I hadn’t felt that feeling of really walking for a while: warmth in my legs, a building momentum, the repetition of each step beneath my feet. And I knew that I needed to feel, and do, something for me.

Walking was a way of connecting with places, a means of transportation. I didn’t often think of it as exercise. And I rarely considered, though I often felt its impact, what it did for my mental health.

Studies of walking’s benefits date back to the 1950s, with the last decade of research preoccupied with the rise of “10,000 steps a day” challenges and the use of pedometers and activity trackers. What they tell us is that while all these tools urge us towards lofty step counts, there isn’t exactly a magic number to achieve. The figure 10,000 was dreamed up as part of a 1960s pedometer marketing campaign in Japan, and a recent study indicates that half that amount can be beneficial, with a plateau in benefits after about 7,500 steps. The NHS advises that just 10 minutes of brisk walking daily makes a difference. For an activity many of us do daily without thinking, this seems remarkable, but it’s estimated that when walking over half our body’s muscle mass is engaged. And the benefits of even a moderate pace – around three miles an hour – range from improved cardiovascular health, like lower blood pressure, to better glucose metabolism, musculoskeletal health, and mental wellbeing…

… keep reading the full & original article HERE