May is national walking month and we would like to update you all on the many benefits of this simple, effective and free exercise.

The importance of keeping active was highlighted at the recent national Physiofirst conference attended by our clinical director, Nicola. A lecture by Professor Karim Khan (Canadian Sports physician) discussed that current research suggests that taking regular exercise is even more beneficial to health than reducing smoking, obesity and diabetes and recommends 60 minutes of moderate intensity exercise daily. This does not have to be all in one go, but can be broken into smaller periods of time over the course of the day – Living Streets have developed tips to help you walk more in their #try20 campaign (https://www.livingstreets.org.uk/). In fact, a brisk 20 minute walk each day could be enough to reduce an individual’s risk of early death (Ekelund et al, 2015)

More specifically regular exercise is know to significantly reduce the risk of:

Heart Disease

Stroke

Dementia

Cancer (particularly breast and colon)

Depression

Obesity

Diabetes

Osteoporosis (Getting outside also boosts your intake of vitamin D, essential for bone health)

Back Pain

So, lets keep our fingers crossed for more fine weather, put on some supportive footwear and get out and WALK!

If you would like any more information the following links may be useful:

http://www.bhfactive.org.uk/walkingmonth/index.html

http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/getting-started-guides/Pages/getting-started-walking.aspx