Walking can sustain our health

Many people consider themselves too busy and as lacking time for physical activity. I have one question for those people, ‘Are you too busy and have no time to go a hospital while you get sick?  Lack of time is not a barrier to getting active. It is a matter of integrating physical activity into daily routine tasks to achieve the minimum physical activity required for our health. If you give a few minutes to walking, you will get more health benefits for a long time.  This blog article will help you to achieve 30 minutes of daily physical activity in easy ways.

Photo: Chalchisa walking with his son

Walking is the easiest way to get active for everyone everywhere. We have to improve our walking behavior. It is easy for everyone to walk; just moving by putting one foot in front of the other with bending arms and knees. What you need is shoes that give you comfort while you walk; not the special one. I don’t recommend you to have a separate plan for walking; rather just integrate into your daily routine tasks. For instance, you can walk for 10 minutes while traveling to our work, school, recreational places, religious places, shopping area, etc. Just look opportunities there and turn into getting active through walking or other forms of physical activity.

Easy ways to achieve 30 minutes of daily physical activity: from my experience

Many people facw difficulties to achieve the 30 minutes daily physical activity for health. In reality, it is too easy to achieve if they follow the rule of 10 minutes. I’m using the following ways to achieve the minimum requirement of daily physical activity.

In the early morning, I do simple aerobic exercises at the home or do jogging on the road for 10-20 minutes. Then, enjoy my breakfast and walk for 10 minutes prior to a Taxi station for transportation even if available nearby my home. Soon I arrive at my workplace andI take one cup of Ethiopian Coffee and start my work.

In the workplace, I walk around and climb stairs while working, and break my sitting time by standing and doing simple stretching exercises.

At lunchtime, I walk for 10 minutes to find my launch. Then, add one cup of Ethiopian Coffee again and walk for another 10 minutes to return back to my workplace. I add a few walking around and stretching exercises in the afternoon while sitting at work.

In the late afternoon, I walk for 10 minutes again before Taxi station and travel back to my home. Then, I enjoy my time with my families and go for sleep.

I repeat these routine tasks from Monday to Friday.

In the weekend, I walk more to recreate with my families, go to church and engage in simple aerobic exercises at home. Remember! Always try to turn every opportunity to walk for your health.

To sum up, this is how walking can help to achieve the required physical activity to sustain our health. I hope, everyone can learn from my experience and integrate walking into their daily routine tasks in order to achieve the required daily physical activity to sustain their health.  

Conclusion

Walking is easy and affordable for all. However, many people fail to walk more due to not integrating it as a part of their daily routine tasks. Thus, public education is crucial how to do so and motivate peoples to move more. Besides, improving urban design and infrastructures that support side walking/biking will encourage peoples to walk in order to sustain health and environment.

About author

Chalchisa Abdeta is a passionate physical activity advocate and researcher in Ethiopia. He graduated with a master of public health and bachelor of physiotherapy. Besides, he had taken several pieces of training on physical activity and non-communicable diseases (NCDs). He is a member of the International Society of Physical Activity and Health (ISPAH). He is working voluntarily as country physical activity representative for Ethiopia and AFRO regional representative for ISPAH Early Career Network.

You can reach Chalchisa on Twitter @chali4pa