Remember a Quick Stroll

Grab your shoes. Put on a sweater. Take a stroll. Enjoy your surroundings. Listen to your own breath or some music through your headphones. Walk beside a friend and talk about anything and everything that comes to mind. Turn your face into the sun. 

Taking a walk, especially during holiday travel (where you’re likely sitting for many hours in a car or in an airport) will bring you so many benefits. You’ll improve your mood, help your joints, decrease your stress levels, and help diminish any holiday weight gain. You’ll connect with the friend or family member beside you. You’ll clear your mind from worries while you boost creativity.

Some of us reading cannot walk due to injury or differing abilities. As I think of those friends who cannot walk and wish they could, I don’t take for granted this act of putting on shoes and having a body that supports walking. While I still can, I want to walk. 

If you’re new to exercising, and only if you are physically able, you can try a walk for 10 minutes. Tomorrow, add on a minute. One day, you’ll walk three miles like it was nothing at all. You might even find yourself like my 85 year old neighbor who walks seven miles a day. Seven miles!

You can walk up and down hallways, in parking lots, around malls, in neighborhoods, on trails in the woods, and anywhere your feet can go.

If you don’t feel great today, and nothing feels right, take a walk and you’ll return to yourself.

 

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