Everyone knows that on holidays it becomes difficult to give up sweets, sparkling wines, panettone, abundant menus and aperitifs with friends. The result is that in January we find ourselves with a few too many marks on the scale. The repentance for indulging in a few too many whims is a lot and we immediately run for cover: gym, cardio, exercises. A great effort to get back in shape. But not everyone knows that it may not be necessary.
There are now dozens and dozens of studies that confirm, in fact, the enormous benefits of a simple but effective exercise. The secret to dispose of the excess calories of dinners would not be doing exhausting exercises in the gym but this relaxing and beneficial activity, once discovered, cannot be done without. Let’s see what it is.
The Stanford study
Walking is perhaps the simplest gesture that everyone does every day. You learn when you are barely one year old and then it becomes so natural that you even forget about it. Yet it has now been shown that it is a fundamental activity for maintaining excellent physical health.
The benefits are not only physical but also mental: walking stimulates so-called divergent thinking and allows you to fly with the imagination. An activity that contributes to the overall well-being of the body and to the psychophysical health of the individual. Stanford University confirmed all this with a specific research.
According to this study, the brain benefits enormously from just walking and the person’s creativity is tremendously stimulated. It takes ten minutes to feel better immediately, thanks to the increased production of endorphins.
Better than three quarters of an hour in the gym, and above all without the limitation of the four walls: you can walk, indeed you should, in the open, clean air. A benefit that goes beyond just physical exercise.
The secret to disposing of the excess calories of dinners would not be doing exhausting exercises but this relaxing and beneficial activity
Stanford researchers explain how walking outdoors is a kind of bath of positivity. The walk improves mood, optimism, self-confidence. It also reduces the so-called “rumination”, that is, constantly thinking about negative things by magnifying them. Then there are the undeniable benefits on the body.
Walking is a low-impact aerobic exercise, within everyone’s reach. At a brisk pace, it becomes an excellent activity for the heart, circulation, blood pressure. The muscles of the legs, buttocks and abdominals also benefit enormously.
In winter, it would improve the immune defenses and the production of antibodies: in other words, walking would help you get sick less. There is no need, then, to do kilometers and kilometers: at the right pace, even 3 thousand steps every day – to start, and maybe increase slowly – are a great result. Also to keep the waist under control.