Senior Living News

Increased Strength

One of the most basic benefits of walking is it tones the muscles in your legs. Every time you take a step, you also rely on your back and abdominal muscles to keep you upright, strengthening your core.

As an added bonus, walking strengthens your bones. Living tissue makes up your bones; throughout your life, your bones go through a remodeling process, which involves absorbing mature bone tissue and forming new tissue. The more you exercise, the denser your bones get, making your skeleton stronger, protecting your vital organs and supporting your body every time you move.

Weight Management

As you get older, your metabolism changes, leading to unwanted weight gain for some people. If you walk briskly for 30 minutes, you should burn about 150 calories, which may help you lose weight. Combining walking with other healthy choices, such as limiting your intake of processed foods, may assist you in burning enough calories to reach your goal weight.

Pain Relief

Exercise releases endorphins, which are chemicals that help improve your mood and change the way you perceive pain, so walking regularly may help you reduce the physical discomfort associated with arthritis and related conditions. To avoid the aches associated with exercise, stretch before you take a walk. If you feel a little sore after a walking session, apply ice or use a heating pad.

Improved Balance

Aging makes it difficult to interpret sensory information, so many older people develop balance problems. Since walking strengthens your lower body, it can make it easier to maintain your balance. Walking also improves your reactive balance, which is your body's ability to respond to changes in the environment. For example, if you move from a carpeted area to a tiled area, your body senses the change and adjusts accordingly.

Reduced Risk of Serious Medical Conditions

Walking and other types of exercise reduce the risk of several serious medical conditions:

• Heart attack: During a heart attack, part of the heart stops receiving oxygen. Without treatment, the muscle tissue dies off, interfering with the heart's ability to function normally. Walking reduces the risk of heart attacks by helping you maintain a healthy weight, reduce inflammation, slow your heartbeat and lower the levels of stress hormones in your blood.
• Hypertension: Hypertension, better known as high blood pressure, is when your blood puts more force on the walls of your arteries than it should. Left untreated, high blood pressure increases the risk for heart attacks, heart disease, stroke and other serious medical conditions. When you exercise regularly, your heart gets stronger, so it doesn't have to pump as hard to get oxygenated blood to your other tissues. This lowers your blood pressure.
• Type 2 diabetes: Type 2 diabetes develops when your body doesn't respond to insulin the way it should. Insulin is a hormone that carries glucose to your cells. Regular exercise increases insulin sensitivity, reducing the amount of glucose that builds up in your bloodstream. If you already have diabetes, walking also reduces the risk of nerve damage and other complications.
  
  
• Cancer: If you're overweight, you may have more inflammation in your body than someone who's in their target weight range. Extra weight also has an effect on insulin and other hormones. Over time, these changes may cause some of your cells to divide uncontrollably, resulting in cancer. Because walking helps you lose excess weight, it may help you reduce your risk of developing this medical condition.
• Heart disease: Coronary artery disease, often referred to as heart disease, occurs when a sticky substance called plaque builds up on the walls of your arteries. Once plaque builds up, it becomes more difficult for blood to flow normally. Exercise is good for your arteries, so walking regularly may help you reduce the risk of CAD.

Dementia Prevention

Walking may even help you reduce your risk of dementia, a condition that causes memory loss and other cognitive symptoms. Researchers are still investigating the exact effects of exercise on dementia risk, but they believe improved blood flow to the brain may prevent the cognitive decline that occurs in seniors with dementia.

If you already have dementia, walking regularly may slow the progression of the disease, improving your quality of life. The good news is that you don't have to exercise vigorously to reduce your risk. Even small amounts of activity appear to have a beneficial effect.