This Is Why Walking Is the Best Exercise

You don’t necessarily think about good foot health when you are walking. Walking, however, is a beneficial exercise to the ligaments as well as the bones in your feet. A good exercise is walking barefoot in sand, which will stretch and strengthen the ligaments in the feet because the softness of the sand makes walking more physically stressful.

Walking can help reduce the symptoms of acid reflux as well decrease the number of acid reflux episodes. High-impact exercise can exacerbate acid reflux, and medical experts suggest lower-impact options such as walking and light jogging.

Walking may turn out to be a medicine for painful inflammation in any joint, according to the Arthritis Foundation. Walking strengthens the muscles, which results in less pressure on the joints and thus less pain. An indirect effect may be weight loss. A healthy weight lessens stress on the joint, also alleviating pain. Walking on a regular basis releases the cartilage in knees, improving circulation, and thus removing inflammatory waste products from the joints.

There are plenty of hypertension medications out there. But some may come with side effects. A drug-free approach to lowering blood pressure may be a brisk walk a day. Some research suggests the walks should be about 40 minutes long, others between 10 and 30 minutes. Regular exercise makes the heart stronger, and a stronger heart pumps blood with less effort. As a result, the force in your arteries decreases, lowering blood pressure.

Another benefit of frequent walking is regular trips to the bathroom. This is because research found that walking helps accelerate digestion and leads to more regular removal of waste. More sedentary people tend to have slower digestive systems. Bowels slow down and stool becomes hard, making it difficult to pass. This can lead to constipation. Aerobic exercise stimulates breathing and heart rate, helping the natural squeezing of muscles in your intestines, moving the waste from your body faster.