Make Your Walk a Workout

Walking while listening to podcasts and audiobooks made it easy for Janet Zinn to stick to her daily exercise program. "I walk at least three miles, sometimes six or 10," says Zinn, 51, of New York.
After a year of regular walking, Zinn dropped more than 60 pounds. She's kept it off for eight months and continues to walk as her main form of exercise.

As one of the simplest exercises, walking requires no equipment aside from a good, supportive pair of walking shoes. "Exercise doesn't have to be hard to be effective," says Julia Valentour, MS, exercise physiologist and program coordinator for the American Council on Exercise (ACE). "The recommended 30 minutes can be broken up into two, 15-minute sessions or even three, 10-minute sessions, making it easy to weave into a busy lifestyle."
Weight loss isn't the only benefit of a walking program. Regular walking helps lower cholesterol, reduces the risk of type 2 diabetes, increases bone strength, and improves circulation.
"Just a few extra steps each day is a simple and easy way to take an active role in maintaining a significantly healthier life," says Timothy Gardner, MD, past president of the American Heart Association.

Starting a Walking Program

Check with your doctor before starting any new exercise program if you've been inactive for a while.
To start your walking program:

Establish a baseline, says Courtenay Schurman, MS, CSCS, author of The Outdoor Athlete. "If you've been sedentary, start walking three times a week at a stroll for 20 minutes." Work your way up to five or so times a week, 30 minutes per session, for a total of 2.5 to 3 hours per week.

Choose distance or time. Some walkers focus on distance, others target time. "Ultimately, it's about speed," Schurman says. "If you can walk five miles but it takes you five hours to do it, it's not a fit level of work. So use both distance and time, as well as heart rate."

Check the intensity. Exercising at a particular heart rate percentage enables you to gauge the difficulty of your workout.
You can check your heart rate by manually checking your pulse or purchase a simple heart rate monitor. Keep in mind, however, that the traditional heart rate formula standards do not fit everyone. "Most recommendations suggest starting out at 70% to 75% of your maximum heart rate, but this may not be enough if you're fit," Schurman says.
Or use the "talk test" to gauge your exercise intensity. "If you can string together six to eight words or chat briefly, you're in your aerobic zone," Schurman says. But if you find yourself gasping for air, lower the intensity. If you can say several phrases with one breath, you may not be working out hard enough.

5 Ways to Stay Motivated

Here are simple ways to keep your walks interesting and help you stay motivated:

Wear a pedometer. Bit by bit, boost your daily steps. "Wear a pedometer for a week to see what days you have the most number of steps," Valentour says. "Then try to repeat the activities of that day and add another 500 steps the following week." Keep it up until you reach 10,000 steps a day.

Keep a walking journal. It serves as a motivator by allowing you to see your progress, Valentour says.

Get a walking partner. "A walking buddy provides accountability. Neither wants to let the other person down," Valentour says.

Sign up for a race or charity walk. It gives you a goal to shoot for, which may motivate you to stick with a program.

Find support online. Programs such as the American Heart Association's StartWalkingNow.org program have helped thousands of people to get started walking. Designed by the American Council on Exercise, the free online program includes a monthly newsletter with health tips and recipes, an online activity and nutrition tracker, access to an online journal, as well as the ability to connect with others for support and motivation. A search option also allows you to look for walking paths in your area.
"You simply go online, register, and take a quiz," Valentour says. "You'll receive a 12-16 week downloadable program." Beginners start with five to 10 minutes; advanced exercisers start with more challenging options.

Tips to Make It More Challenging

If you're already fit, walking may seem too easy. But it's easy to kick up the intensity for a more challenging workout. Here's how:

Speed up. "The easiest way to up the ante is to simply walk faster," says Therese Iknoian, MS, author of Fitness Walking. You may even want to try race walking, which uses more muscles and, therefore, burns more calories. Brisk walking at four miles an hour burns 334 calories and strolling at three miles per hour burns 221 calories, according to the American College of Sports Medicine. "Remember to pump your arms but keep the movement compact," Iknoian says. "The larger the arm swing, the harder it is to move them faster."

Head for the hills. Walking up hills also increases intensity, as does lifting the incline on a treadmill. But don't hang on to the treadmill as you walk or you'll negate the benefits, Iknoian says. "You don't want to look as if you're waterskiing." Hanging on makes your body perpendicular to the treadmill, so ergonomically you're walking on flat ground.

Change the surface. Consider changing your walking surface for a greater challenge. "Walking on trails and maneuvering around rocks increases muscular demand," Iknoian says. Snow, sand -- even grass -- makes walking more of a challenge.

Use Nordic poles to get upper body muscles involved. "You increase the cardio workout when using poles, plus they take the stress off of knees when walking downhill," Iknoian says.

Add resistance with a weighted backpack or weight vest. "If you use a backpack, fill it with water, sand, or kitty litter so the weight distributes evenly," Schurman says. "Avoid ankle and hand weights, which can change your gait and can set you up for injury."

8 Safety Tips for Walkers

Keep safety in mind when you walk outdoors. Follow these basic rules:

• Walk with a buddy whenever possible.
• Carry your name, address, and a friend or relative's phone number in your shoe or tied to a lace.
• Wear a medical bracelet if you have diabetes, an allergy, or other condition.
• Carry a cell phone and let a friend or relative know your walking routes.
• Avoid deserted or unlit streets, especially after dark.
• Do not use headsets that prevent you from hearing traffic; and walk against oncoming traffic.
• Wear reflective material and/or carry a flashlight to others can see you.
• Carry a whistle or noisemaker or pepper spray in case of an emergency.

Above all, make walking fun and you'll be more likely to stick with it.

Meditation Balances the Body's Systems

Most people aren't raised to sit and say "Om." But meditation has gained millions of converts, helping them ease chronic pain, anxiety, stress, improve heart health, boost mood and immunity, and resolve pregnancy problems.

Any condition that's caused or worsened by stress can be alleviated through meditation, says cardiologist Herbert Benson, MD, well known for three decades of research into the health effects of meditation. He is the founder of the Mind/Body Institute at Harvard Medical School's Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.

"The relaxation response [from meditation] helps decrease metabolism, lowers blood pressure, and improves heart rate, breathing, and brain waves," Benson says. Tension and tightness seep from muscles as the body receives a quiet message to relax.
There's scientific evidence showing how meditation works. In people who are meditating, brain scans called MRI have shown an increase in activity in areas that control metabolism and heart rate. Other studies on Buddhist monks have shown that meditation produces long-lasting changes in the brain activity in areas involved in attention, working memory, learning, and conscious perception.
The soothing power of repetition is at the heart of meditation. Focusing on the breath, ignoring thoughts, and repeating a word or phrase - a mantra - creates the biological response of relaxation, Stan Chapman, PhD, a psychologist in the Center for Pain Medicine at Emory Healthcare in Atlanta, tells.

"Meditation is not difficult to learn," Chapman tells. "You don't need to see a therapist 40 times to learn it. But like tennis, it's a skill. You need to practice. In time, people develop the ability to produce these meditative, very relaxed states very quickly. When they meditate several times during the day, they become more relaxed during the entire day."
Some research on meditation's benefits:
Heart Health: Countless studies have looked at meditation and heart health. Regular practice has been shown to significantly help high blood pressure over the long term, according to government-sponsored studies conducted at the College of Maharishi Vedic Medicine in Fairfield, Iowa. Among those studies, one showed significant lowering of blood pressure and heart rate in black adults.
Also, a study in the American Journal of Hypertension showed that teenagers who meditated for 15 minutes twice a day for four months were able to lower their blood pressure a few points.

Immune Booster: Meditation also helps ward off illness and infections. In one study testing immune function, flu shots were given to volunteers who had meditated for eight weeks and to people who didn't meditate. Blood tests taken later showed the meditation group had higher levels of antibodies produced against the flu virus, according to the study inPsychosomatic Medicine.

Women's Health:Premenstrual syndrome (PMS), infertility problems, and even breastfeeding can be improved when women meditate regularly. In one study, PMS symptoms subsided by 58% when women meditated. Another study found that hot flashes were less intense among meditating women.
Women struggling with infertility had much less anxiety, depression, and fatigue following a 10-week meditation program (along with exercise and nutrition changes); 34% became pregnant within six months. Also, new mothers who meditated on images of milk flowing from their breasts were able to more than double their production of milk.

 

Meditation Changes Brain in Good Ways

Monks who practiced Buddhist meditation had evidence of significantly greater brain activity, called gamma wave activity, in areas associated with learning and happiness compared with those who didn't practice meditation, according to a recent study. Gamma waves involve mental processes including attention, memory, learning, and conscious perception. The monks also showed higher activity in areas associated with positive emotions, like happiness.
"There's no doubt from the standpoint of research and my own clinical experience that meditation can reduce both the experience of pain and help people manage stress resulting from having pain," Chapman says.

Meditation is a therapy offered in all comprehensive pain centers, he says.
How do you know if meditation is "working" - if your body is actually getting that relaxation response? If you get feelings of warmth, heaviness, and calm when you meditate, it mean that you've gone deep enough, says Chapman. It you just can't reach that level, enroll in a class, he suggests. "Sometimes it helps to have someone guide you, to help you know when you're making progress."
If meditation just doesn't seem to work, move on to another relaxation method, Benson advises. "Any practice that can evoke the relaxation response is of benefit, be it meditation, yoga, breathing, or repetitive prayer. There is no reason to believe that one is better than the other. The key is repetition, but the repetition can be a word, sound, mantra, prayer, breathing, or movement."

Help for the Chronically Late

New York lingerie designer Carolyn Keating was thrilled to land a job interview with Victoria's Secret. She knew that being on time was essential to making a good impression, but there was just one problem. "I had written down the address wrong. I meant to check it the night before on the computer, but I didn't." When Keating finally arrived at the correct address, she was 30 minutes late. "I felt embarrassed and it really flustered me," she tells. "I carried that insecure, worried, flustered energy throughout the interview." She didn't get the job.

Another time, Keating and several friends showed up 15 minutes late to a colleague's wedding. "The bride was already at the alter. She was basically saying 'I do' when we tumbled in, and it's hard for six or seven people to tiptoe in quietly. We were worried that we ruined the most important day of her life."

For some people, being on time seems nearly impossible -- no matter how important the event. They're always running out the door in a frenzy, arriving everywhere at least 10 minutes late. If this sounds like you, have you ever wished you could break the pattern? According to Julie Morgenstern, author ofTime Management From the Inside Out, the first step is to make promptness a conscious priority.
"Look at the costs of being late and the payoffs of being on time," Morgenstern advises. She says it's important to recognize that being late is upsetting to others and stressful for the one who is late. "I think people's stress level is very high when they're late. They're racing, worried, and anxious. They spend the first few minutes apologizing. One of the payoffs of being on time is that you eliminate the stress of the travel time and you eliminate the time spent apologizing

The Consequences of Being Late

The consequences of being chronically late run deeper than many people realize, according to psychologist Linda Sapadin, PhD, author of Master Your Fears. "You're creating a reputation for yourself, and it's not the best reputation to be establishing. People feel they can't trust you or rely on you, so it impacts relationships. It also impacts self-esteem."
Once you feel motivated to make a change, Morgenstern says the next step is to figure out why you're always late. The reason can usually be classified as either technical or psychological.

Technical Difficulties

"If you're always late by a different amount of time -- five minutes sometimes, 15, or even 40 minutes other times -- it is likely that the cause is technical," Morgenstern tells WebMD. "That means you are not good at estimating how long things take," whether it's drive times or routine activities like taking a shower.
Keating says she falls into this category. "It's a case of bad planning, of thinking you need less time than you actually do."
The solution, Morgenstern says, is to "become a better time estimator." She suggests keeping track of everything you do for a week or two. "Write down how long you think each thing will take and then how long it actually took." This will help you find a pattern, so you can adjust your time estimates.
Keating says this strategy is helpful. "You have to be realistic about how long certain things take, especially things you do routinely. If you know it takes 20 minutes to blow dry your hair, allow yourself 20 minutes to blow dry your hair," she says, "and leave a little extra time for those days when your hair is uncooperative."

Learning to Say 'No'

Another technical difficulty for some people is the inability to say "no" to additional commitments when they're short on time. You might be a good time estimator, Morgenstern explains, but "your best-laid plans get waylaid when someone asks you for something and you can't say 'no.'"
The solution to this problem is to "practice catchphrases," Morgenstern tells WebMD. Learn to defer or decline requests by saying, "I would love to help, but I'm on a deadline" or "I'm meeting people in half an hour. I can help you tomorrow."

Choosing to Be Late

"If you are literally always 10 minutes late, it's psychological," Morgenstern says. "You're arriving exactly when you want. The question is 'why?'"
Sapadin says the answer depends on your personality type. "For some people, it's a resistance thing," she tells WebMD. "It's a carryover of rebelliousness from childhood. They don't want to do what other people expect them to."
Another category is the "crisis-maker," someone who thrives on the minicrisis of running late. "These are people who cannot get themselves together until they get an adrenaline rush," Sapadin explains. "They need to be under the gun to get themselves moving."

Planning for Wait Time

For most people, running late has more to do with anxiety about where they're going. "There's a fear factor in which people are anxious about going at all or about getting there too early and having nothing to do," Sapadin says.
Morgenstern agrees. "There is a tremendous fear of downtime, an anxiety associated with doing nothing and waiting." You know you're in this category if you'd rather be late to a massage than spend one minute sitting in the waiting room.
To overcome wait time anxiety, Morgenstern suggests planning "something highly absorbing to do while you wait." Try to arrive at every appointment 10 or 15 minutes early and use the time for a specific activity, such as writing notes to people, reading a novel, or catching up with friends on the phone. This strategy can help convert dreaded wait time into time that is productive and pleasurable, giving you an incentive to be on time.

Walking Out the Door

Finally, a deceptively simple tip from Morgenstern: Walk out the door on time. She says many people try to avoid downtime by "shoving in one more thing" just before they need to leave. She calls this the "one-more-task syndrome" and says it's a major obstacle to being on time. "If you really want to beat this, the minute you think of squeezing in one more thing before you leave, just don't do it. Stop yourself in your tracks, grab your bag and walk out the door."