When occasion arises, I use this site as an opportunity to advocate regular activity for its benefits on health and wellbeing. While exercise and activity comes in many forms, I have for some time been a big believer in walking. This form of exercise is available to almost all of us, is free, and is even generally acceptable to those of us who do not consider ourselves as ‘sporty’.

This week’s British Medical Journal contained a couple of interesting articles that focused on walking as an activity. One of the [1] reviewed the evidence that strategies to encourage walking (e.g. counseling, group support, use of pedometers) actually had an impact. In conclusion, this research provided evidence that such approaches seem to lead to an increase in walking time of 30-60 minutes per week.

This paper was accompanied by an editorial which took a broader view of the health impact of walking, including the evidence that even relatively low intensity exercise such as this can improve health.

The best evidence we have in this area tends to be ‘epidemiological’ in nature. This essentially means that it compares the health of individuals who are active with the health of more sedentary individuals. This sort of evidence is not ideal, but it’s the best we have.

This evidence does suggest that the health benefits of walking may be substantial. As the BMJ editorial [2] pointed out, studies have found that women who increased both walking distance and speed had a lower risk of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, and overall risk of death [3,4]. The risk in those who were most active was about half that those who were least active. In another study, those who cycled to work were found to be at 30 per cent lower risk of death compared to non-cyclists after accounting for other factors that could affect the results including general activity levels, socioeconomic status and smoking [5].

I reckon one of the major barriers to exercise is time. However, if truth be told, many of us could liberate 20-30 minutes each day quite easily. Here are a few suggestions how:

• Don’t turn on the television in the evening (or any other time of day for that matter).

• Avoid checking and reading emails incessantly – aim for 1 – 3 checks at predetermined times in the day.

• Don’t buy a newspaper – very rarely is anything important going to be missed by not getting one’s daily fix of print media.

• Get up earlier (getting to bed a bit earlier is the secret here!)

• Schedule exercise into the day – at the start of every day or week, work out where some activity can go and view it as no different to a meeting or appointment.

Just employing one or two of these strategies will usually be all it takes to free up the time to weave some walking into one’s life with relative ease.

References:

1. Ogilvie, D, et al. Interventions to promote walking: systematic review. BMJ 2007;334:1204

2. Andersen LB. Physical activity and health. Even low intensity exercise such as walking is associated with better health. BMJ 2007;334:1173

3. Manson JE, et al. A prospective study of walking as compared with vigorous exercise in the prevention of coronary heart disease in women. N Engl J Med 1999;341:650-8

4. Hu FB, et al. Walking compared with vigorous physical activity and risk of type 2 diabetes in women. JAMA 1999;282:1433-9

5. Andersen LB, et al. All-cause mortality associated with physical activity during leisure time, work, sports, and cycling to work. Arch Intern Med 2000;160:1621-8

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