Walking is one of the most beneficial things that you can do for your health in my opinion.  At one point in my life (a low point) I sat on the couch everyday, watched tv, ate tv dinners and ate potato chips.  I barely walked at all and because of that, and the lack of a healthy diet I got heart palpitations.  For those of you that don’t know what heart palpitations are, heart palpitations are when your heart skips a beat, or two, or three and it feels like your heart stopped beating for a minute.

For me, they lasted a few seconds and it scared me because I was young at the time and knew that something like this should not be happening.  My mom told me to get magnesium in my diet somehow and to start going for walks and by doing those two things my heart palpitations went away.  Since then my lifestyle habits and diet have changed a lot but walking really showed me something during that time.

Walking has many health and wellness benefits such as…

* Stronger and healthier heart and lungs

* Lymphatic movement and drainage

* Circulatory movement

* Oxygenates to the body

* Improved Digestion

* Improves Balance

* A More Toned Body & Frame overall

One thing that I have noticed is that sometimes when I get done with a walk I have a good bowel movement.  Ever notice that? Walking really helps to improve and enhance the digestive system and functions as a whole.  Think about it, you are walking and moving your abdominal muscles back and forth on both sides over and over again.  That constant movement and flexing of the abs over and over again should help the stomach and internal organs to move, process waste and help you have a good movement overall right?

Well it does, in fact I challenge you to start walking daily and see if your bowel movements don’t change just because of that alone.  I used to work for the electric company reading meters and when I started the job I lost about 5 pounds in the first several weeks simply from all of the walking.  Walking is one of the most important things to do if you are looking to tone up and become thinner.

Another thing I have noticed is that a lot of the spiritual teachers and leaders in history walked a lot, people like Mahatma Gandhi, Jesus and i’m sure others.  They all walked a LOT.  I think there is something truly rejuvinating, cleansing and purifying to the mind, body and spirit when you walk.  It’s a good restorative and regenerative exercise that balances the body.

I wouldn’t be surprised if walking helps with a lot of regulatory things in the body as well such as balancing hormones, balancing patterns within the body on a chemical level etc… It seems to really balance and regulate for me at least.

Also, Have you ever noticed that people such as Jesus, Gandhi and other spiritual teachers of our historical past have walked a lot? I think there is more to walking than we now know, and we know a lot! This is something to keep in mind, to understand that you walking gives you all of these benefits and more.  There’s something regenerating about walking that benefits our mind, body and spirit! and not many things out there really help the mind, body and spirit like walking does.

There are a few recommendations that I would make when you walk, the first one is to walk barefoot in order to soak up all the negative electrons from the earth’s field.  If you can walk in grass in a park, or on the beach touching the ocean with your feet you are getting a blood-thinning grounding effect that helps balance the positive/negative electron balance in your body along with all of the other benefits listed above. Learn more about the benefits of walking barefoot by reading the book earthing here.

If you cannot walk barefoot I recommend getting vibram 5 fingers shoes, simply because this is the closest thing to barefoot as far as balance and leg, knee and foot health….

It will help to strengthen your legs best and keep everything balanced.  I worked in a shoe store in a past life and had insoles and all different pairs of shoes and they actually harmed me more than helped, I had knee pain for a while at the young age of 19 simply because I wore an insole everyday that caused my knee to not be aligned properly and while jumping fences and reading meters on a daily basis it broke my knees down fast.

As you can see the vibram 5 finger shoes are ‘toe shoes’ that really mold to your feet and allow for the closest thing to barefoot walking.  This won’t be as good as barefoot but as far as physiologically getting the most benefit these are the top shoes I recommend.

The last and final recommendation I would make is to listen to a podcast, educational on health, wellness, fitness or something like entrepreneurship, growing as a person or some type of personal development podcast that helps to grow your mind while you are walking.  Why? Because when you are moving and walking while educating your mind it sticks better.  You learn the lessons and they penetrate your mind deeper.  I believe your mind, memory and body overall has better memory and is more receptive when you are moving and the senses are engaged so use the walk to your advantage to fill your mind with something positive that adds value to your life.  I listen to entrepreneurial, marketing, business, health, wellness and personal development podcasts all the time.

To tag onto this recommendation I recommend using something like an ipod nano so that you can listen to the podcast and use the nike fitness app like I do to track your steps, how many calories you burned and how far you walked.  This way you get to educate yourself and see how much you’ve accomplished.  It’s a great way to reward yourself, it’s almost like playing a video game because you see how far you can walk, how many steps you can take and how many calories you can burn.

You can see the picture of what the screen looks like after a walk here:

As you can see I walked 7,595 steps this day! I was rather motivated.

I burned 298 Calories, and walked 3.73 Miles.

All of this I tracked using the Nike Fitness app in my Ipod Nano.  If you have an Ipod Nano this works great for the walks, if not then you may have this app on your phone but I would prefer and recommend an Ipod nano simply because you don’t have to take all those EMF’s on the walk with you!

Unless you are walking barefoot, then the Emf’s aren’t a huge deal… Still would be good to have an electronic device that doesn’t emit Electro-magnetic-frequencies (EMFS)

The great thing about walking your way to wellness is that it truly is one of the best things that you can do.  If you were to start taking small actions to improve your health, wellness, vitality, energy levels and overall sense of wellbeing I would recommend that walking be one of the top actions that you start taking on a daily basis.  It’s free, it’s a chance to get some ‘you time’ as well as learn something new, and see at the end the numbers that work as an external reward for your hard work.

Walk your way to wellness… walk away!

Please like this article and share it, it took a lot of time and effort and a lot of people could really benefit from this information… Who knows, maybe one of your friends will see it and it will inspire them to begin walking and change their life for the better! So please share and leave your comments below.

Until next time… Pura Vida!

David Benjamin

P.S. My current favorite brand of shoes that is created best for foot anatomy is Lems Shoes which you can learn more about at LemsShoes.com by clicking here.

You can look for Vibram 5 finger shoes here, or read about earthing and the benefits of walking barefoot here.