Now that the holidays are over, I think that an exercise related post is well-needed. I’m sure that many of you, myself included, are in a hurry to get back to the usual diet and exercise routine. Christmas cookies be gone!
When it comes to exercise, I prefer the intensity and difficulty to be high. I like difficult workouts. I want to feel like I was just running away from Jason from Friday the 13th for the last two hours when my workouts done.
I want to feel and know that I had a good workout. I want to be sore the next day. I want to have difficulty moving around with ease because I tore it up the day before. The satisfaction that comes along with knowing that you had a good workout trumps the temporary pain you have to deal with afterward.
That being said, this mindset has not always been helpful for me. It’s caused me some issues with going too hard and too fast. I have had my share of injuries in the past from pushing it too far.
Due to my blinding love for intense exercise, I overlooked one type of exercise that just may be the perfect type of exercise for the human body, which is walking.
I always considered walking as a way to get from one point to the other. I never truly considered it an elite form of exercise that I could benefit from in any way.
As I think about it now, I realized that I could not have been more wrong about walking. Walking can benefit the mind and body in some amazing ways.
A Walking Epiphany
I have always scoffed at walking as a form of exercise. Of course, I have gone on walks in the usual places that most do throughout their life, but never thought there was much I could gain from it.
As the end of the year approaches, I have been burning the candle at both ends in most areas and have been feeling pretty burned out. The trees are bare and the temperatures are low where I live right now. True sunlight on any given day is a rarity.
With the lower temperatures and lack of sun, I don’t spend much time outside during the winter months. Not many do but there are a few warriors that bare the cold for their daily runs and walks.

I have always heard that walking had a lot of health benefits and can help you sort out your thoughts. Something about moving while being alone with you thoughts apparently provides a healthy atmosphere for clearing your mind.
One of the issues that I struggle a lot with is what I like to call a runaway mind. I have what feels like millions of thoughts going through my head a day. My focus can be all over the place which makes it difficult to get high-quality work done.
On one particularly thought heavy day before Christmas, I decided to try a new type of exercise. Not the usual gym workout but something new. I can’t put my finger on it but something just told me to give walking a try.
I am lucky enough to have a walking trail close to my house which runs along a river and through the woods. It’s quite picturesque.
Luckily, it was one of the warmer days when I decided to go for the walk and I did not need to bundle up too much. When I started walking, I was feeling overwhelmed and stressed out but something happened between the beginning and end of that walk that made a strong enough impact on me to write this post.
As I began to walk, feeling the cold cross my face and hearing the river rush by, I realized that I was going through the thoughts in my head like you would go through folders in a filing cabinet. I wasn’t jumping from thought to thought like I usually did. I was calmly going through each thought and sorting them all out.
The longer I walked the more organized my mind felt. There was a point where it felt like each step was causing me to feel calmer and more collected.
By the time the walk ended, I was in a totally different state of mind. I had gone from stressed out to calm. From overwhelmed to in control. My mind felt calm and clear. It felt really good.
Range of motion
Aside from feeling stressed out, I had been feeling an overall stiffness in my body that I know is from sitting too much. With the cold weather, there’s not a lot to do that doesn’t involve sitting. Even with my daily workouts, it doesn’t seem to be enough movement to keep my body feeling completely limber.
I had a hunch that walking would ease my body out of the stiffness that I had been feeling. Along with the stiffness, I also had a nagging hip pain that randomly came out of the blue one day.

A big mistake that people make when they feel any kind of pain or injury to their body is to completely avoid using that body part until it feels better. I have never found that to work very well. With every single injury that I have had, which includes three knee surgeries (thanks wrestling), I have always found that moving the injured body part to the extent possible helped far more than not moving it when it came to recovery.
After the walk, the stiffness in my knees, legs and back was nearly gone. My body felt great. On top of that, my hip pain was completely gone. As I’m writing this post, it’s been about two weeks since I went for a walk and my hip pain has never returned.
Beyond the body
As I finished that walk and made the fifteen-minute drive back home, I thought about it and realized a couple things. For the first time probably ever, I understood why people talked so highly of walking.
The physical benefits of walking are well-known and I am going to be the last person on earth to make another blog post listing the benefits. It’s an activity that humans have been doing since the beginning of time. If you are not aware of the major physical benefits, here’s a quick read on them from the Arthritis Foundation.
Sure my body felt great after the walk, but the thing I found most interesting was the clarity I was experiencing. My thoughts were very much in line as opposed to them all coming in at once.
I had a sense of calmness and well-being that is difficult to put into words. It’s very similar to the feeling that’s present after a meditation session.

I realized then that all those touting the benefits of walking for clearing your mind and organizing your thoughts were right. Good idea after good idea starting coming up after that walk and I felt like I could’ve written for hours.
The clarity that I felt also last the majority of the day. I went for a walk late into the morning and was still feeling clear-headed into the late night hours, even after work, which is rare.
Walking has the potential to go beyond the body. While a difficult workout can make you feel similar to how I felt after a walk, it can also leave you feeling exhausted and burned out. There’s a price to pay for high intensity workouts. Unless you are a rare specimen, you cannot do them every day and you cannot do them forever.
Knowing that, it’s important to find other forms of exercise that can bring you similar benefits. There is no right or wrong exercise. The benefits you gain from it are the important part. Exercise is a tool that we use to improve our lives and our bodies.
A useful tool
Now walking will obviously not replace lifting weights. Maybe it can tone your legs a bit but probably nothing to a noticeable extent if you are already in shape.
Just because walking won’t pack on lean muscle does not mean that it’s an exercise that you should ignore. To be honest, I feel regretful that I have gone this long ignoring the benefits of walking.
Walking very useful tool for you to use along with your normal workout routine. If lifting weights is your primary source of exercise than you probably have noticed that your mobility takes a hit. Your muscles get bigger and your joints get stiff. Moving around becomes more difficult that it used to be.
Walking is great to counteract the effect that lifting weights can have on your mobility because it gets your whole body moving in a gentle way. Not every exercise has to be difficult. It’s a ying and a yang.

Due to the fact that walking can provide you with the same mental and physical benefits of other types of exercises in a gentle way, I would argue that it is the perfect exercise. It’s an exercise that can be done every day by almost everyone regardless of age. Walking can be done in long distances or longer periods of time with little impact on the body. It will leave you feeling more energized without the soreness. What other exercise is able to do that?
If you were having any of the issues that I was, both physical and mental, I think that you will find walking to be beneficial. Now I haven’t made it a part of my daily routine yet, so I don’t know how far those benefits will go but one walk was enough to open my eyes to the benefits of it.
Is walking a part of your daily routine? I would love to hear the benefits that you have gained or observed from walking below.
Walking. Simple. You have hit the nail on the head. Walking allows you time to process all those thoughts that are spinning in your mind.
I agree, that setting time aside for a walk once in a while has many benefits.
Your article was concise and precise and was easy to read. It flowed nicely and took me from the place of wondering if I should walk, to planning a walk.
Well done.
Have a great day!
Thanks Tom!!
Wow, great post! I didn’t think of walking as a form of exercise either. I mean, I have heard people say that walking helps lose weight and it’s good for us mentally and physically. I also know of a few people who have gone out for walks daily but because it’s much more slow paced, I didn’t put it in the “exercising” category.
Now, I can think of walking as a form of exercise. However, like you, I like workouts that are a little more intensive and feel the burn. I guess once in a while, a walk is always good.
Come to think of it, there was one summer where I would go out to a park closeby for a walk; about 1-1.5hrs daily. I didn’t do it for the sake of “exercising” but I did it to clear my mind and to get myself and my mind away from everything. I found that every time I finished my walk, I felt so refreshed.
Even though walks are slow and not a means of weight loss for me, I would definitely do it for the other benefits; stress relief, fresh air, clear mind, enjoying nature.
Thanks for this post, I really enjoyed it and it sure brought back some memories!
Cheers,
Teresa
Hi Teresa,
A walk is definitely good once in a while if not every day. There are so many benefits. I’m glad you enjoyed it. Thanks for the comment!
I agree with you. I tend to incorporate walking into my everyday life. I’m on the computer a lot, either writing, reading, or researching, so I always prefer to stand and work. I’ll break every 20-30 minutes and walk around the room, too. I’ll also park farther away from any location I drive to, forcing myself to walk longer distances. I live close to a trail myself and it’s a great place to walk for miles on end. Lifting weights is and always will be my primary form of exercise, and even my cardio involves lifting weights with shorter breaks and quicker reps. However, walking is one of my non-lifting staples and I’ll walk often in the warmer weather if I don’t feel up to running or sprinting during such workouts.
Sounds like you have it down Todd. I do the same with parking far away. Lifting will always be my primary exercise as well but I find that I need to do more mobility work as the years go by so doing other things besides lifting is mandatory for me. Thanks for your comment!
Great article. I travel a lot for work and instead of just taking the tram to the next gate, I make it a point to walk around the terminal for as long as I can. It’s great to destress from travel and it’s also good because of all the sitting you do on the plane.
I can’t agree with you more about walking. (I’m not a jogger or runner, so I’d rather walk for an hour on a treadmill watching a TV show than run for 20 minutes).
Hi Nancy,
Thank you! Thats a great idea. I’ll have to try that the next time I fly. Sitting on the plane for hours can be downright brutal and I bet it helps a lot. Thanks for your comment!
Hey Dan! I myself posted an article on walking and I really appreciated reading your post and gaining some further perspective on the benefits of walking – I am a huge advocate for the body in motion and walking is something that any ambulatory person can dial in and as you stated so nicely, can provide a huge shift in mind and body. Exercise is such an important tool to harness in the optimal well being of human body – we were made to move and I totally agree with you that walking is a gentle way to get your body moving – and I imagine quite a change from the energy needed in weight lifting. Fantastic that you encourage a balance and I look forward to more you have coming down the pipe! Thanks for the great post!
Hi Rebecca,
I totally agree! It is definitely a huge change in energy from weight lifting but it’s a welcomed change when I do it. The body needs a break once in a while from lifting all those weights and walking is a great alternative that helps the body rest and recuperate while still being active. Thanks for your comment!
Hi Dan,
That was a great post and I walk most everyday and have almost all my life. My mom used to say”lets go for an oxygen cocktail” and to me the benefits of fresh air are amazing as well.Apparently it will improve your, immune, your blood pressure and your heart rate.I never thought or paid attention to how my thoughts are more organized, that was interesting and I will pay attention.I know I crave my walks. Another term I heard was that nature is Gods healing balm, and to me that describes it beautifully. You have some great post and I am bookmarking to get the next one. Have a Happy New year
Hi Phyllis,
Thank you so much. I like the oxygen cocktail term! I have never heard the healing balm term about nature but I really like that as well and totally agree with it. I always feel so much better after being in nature. Beach, ocean, forest, anything. Always helps elevate my mood. Thank you for your comment and you have a Happy New Year as well!