Tag: health and happiness

Short walk to a longer healthier life

Apparently, we in Britain are some of the most inactive people in the world. One third of us cannot manage even a 30 minute walk every week.Result: 37,000 lives are lost that might otherwise be saved from premature death. Many of us succumb to diabetes and heart disease, and assorted cancers. So what to do? We can schedule 20 minutes a day for a walk , and do it! Can’t we? A good walk of this short duration can boost our natural disease killer cells, help curb inflammation within our bodies,and privent damage to our ‘energy battery cells’. I’m in. Oh, and by the way, a good daily walk can actually be, well, fun relaxing and fun. If you are up for a healthier life-style do have a look at this recent report from the Daily Mail.

A short walk of just 20 minutes could be a life changer for you. Others who say so are:

Ramblers

MacMillan Cancer Support

Walking back to health and happiness

 

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Walking has been described as the most underrated of human activities, and yet, when I last searched on Google there were 499 million entries for this one word alone! Clearly there is a vast interest in walking but are we reaping the full benefit of this most natural of skills? In health matters and particularly in terms of preventable serious illness, it seems we are not. Insufficient physical activity and an overly high intake of calories in food and drink are causing widespread chronic diseases in the general population of many developed countries.

 

 

Should I do this?Will I benefit?

People of all ages can greatly benefit from walking for exercise. And the fantastic news is that it is never too late to start taking advantage. From the outset, you should listen to your body and only do what is comfortable for you. If you are not a walker for fitness you should build-up your level of activity introducing walking into your daily life until it becomes a habit you enjoy and don’t wish to lose. Importantly, it should become fun,and you should feel better for it.

The benefits of walking are :

– More active life

– Losing weight

– Having fun

– Gaining a purposeful habit

– Saving money

– Expanding social life

– Providing protection against serious illness

Many of us need help later in life to sustain the level of physical activity required to ensure we give ourselves the best chance of living long and healthy lives. Significant changes in our lifestyles can affect our attitude to exercise. Often,when we reach a certain age and move away from busy family and business schedules to finding more time on our hands, we can tend to slow down. The equation we need to guard against this:

High calorie Intake + Low Physical Activity = Obesity,diabetes, and other chronic diseases.

So what will help? A good habit of taking exercise regularly and within our individual ability can pay high health dividends. In order to acquire this habit most of us need to see the measurable results of our efforts indicating clearly our progress towards incremental and reasonable improvements in our fitness. We need targets to aim for and the ability to measure easily how we are doing. The answer is to use a physical activity monitoring device everyday.

Activity Measurement

I recently bought a pedometer. This I believe will help me to build-up my daily walking activity. Already I have noticed a significant change in my daily walking activity. I will let you know how I get on. Over the next few weeks, I would also like to bring you some tips and related information about the benefits of the free at the point of action gift of walking to help ourselves sustain or improve the quality of our lives.So, if you don’t want to miss out,you can sign-up for my regular newsletter, in the box at the right of this screen- no obligation, and certainly no danger that your details will ever be used elsewhere.

Continue reading for details about the Omron Premium Digital Pocket Pedometer…pedometer review

 

 

Over 40s can expect to live happier as they grow older


A never say die thirst for adventure

Are you time poor and in your 40s? Mortgage burden, job or career concerns,growing and demanding young family are draining your fount of well-being?

A recent Warwick University research report finds evidence to show that a typical individual’s well-being reaches its lowest ebb in middle age.From age 45 years,though,you should,all things being equal,expect to become happier as the years go by.The evidence shows this to apply to both males and females, and to populations on both sides of the Atlantic.How so?

An explanation it seems is that as we grow older our life experience tells us to count our blessings. When others of our peers are beginning to fail,ail or even die  this intensifies a need to make the most of our remaining years.This is my  interpretation of the view of Professor Andrew Oswald who was one of the leaders of the Warwick University research project. The research also found that older people sleep longer at night which may give them the edge over younger people who survive on less regular rest.

Christine Webber ,author of Too Young To Grow Old,found through a survey of 45 to 65 year olds that most respondents who felt happier now than when they were young claimed increasing age had given them a growing confidence.There are also clearly things we can do to help raise our happiness levels.

This time last year

We quoted  from a report from the Kansas City Star:

‘Apparently, men do not get meaner, irritable and more sarcastic as they get older. In fact, among the men participating in the Study of Adult Development — the longest longitudinal study of adult life ever conducted — men seem to get happier as they get older.The study has followed two groups of men for 68 years: 268 men who graduated from Harvard University and 456 men who grew up in the urban neighborhoods of Boston.

‘Depression in men, characterized by irritability and anger (and sarcasm is a form of anger) did not increase with age, according to the study ‘,carried out at the Department of Psychiatry at Brigham and Women’s Hospital of Harvard’s medical school.’

Reverting to the Warwick project, evidence is revealed of well-being following a U-shaped curve through the life cycle, the upward end of the happiness curve picking-up from around age 45 years.

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