Thursday Brief

With number of cases in India crossing 150,000 marks, as of yesterday it stood at 154,000+, with death count as 4,525 and recovery number is 67,500+ which is a encouraging figure amounting to 44% of patients who were infected are recovered. It looks like the figures of infected people are going to increase, the present trend indicates that it takes  4 days to add 25,000 cases to the total. As expected in states Maharashtra and in cities Mumbai  are leaders in every figure whether total number of cases, or number of deaths etc. It looks like it is long way to go, when India can be declared safe from corona.

Now coming to other topic of the day :

For decades, WALKING has been accepted as highly beneficial form of exercise. Many doctors advise their patients to get a daily dose of exercise through walking. Studies conducted on this topic prove that walking is truly beneficial for the overall health of person. It helps with not only physical health, but also mental and emotional health of a person.

The benefits– A few of the known benefits of walking are

• Help in maintaining body weight (helps reduce if over weight).
• Helps with heart health as it reduces bad cholesterol and increase good cholesterol.
• Relief from stress and anxiety.
• Improved sleep, mood and stamina.
• Keeps your mental faculties alert.
• Can help in keeping many aging related issue at bay.

There are many more benefits of walking and it is said that a person is expected to walk 10,000 steps in a day for reaping all the benefits. And that is the reason we have so many walk monitoring devices that helps you track such data.

How much should seniors walk ?- walking is good, but how much walking should a senior person do? Walking is  counted as moderate aerobic exercise, and seniors of age 65+ should have at least 150 minutes of walking activity per week, which works  out to approx 21 minutes per day. Unless you have been prohibited by the doctor not to walk for any specific reasons, walking is something which any one can start at any age without any harmful effects. Spread out your walking time uniformly across the week for better control and monitoring rather than do it once a week to finish the quota. It is important to wear comfortable clothes and shoes for walking. It can be done either in the morning or in the evening depending on your convenience. If you are used for longer walks then it is advisable that you carry  your water bottle with you to be on the safe side.

Wow fast should one walk?- Typically one is expected to start walking slowly and then build up a pace and maintain the same. A brisk walk is what is expected, mostly, to provide all the benefits. In a brisk walk, one should ensure that the whole body is included, which means you should also try to swing your hands back and forth naturally as you walk. The walk should be generally faster than the stroll but slower than the jog. The best way to determine if your speed is right is, if you can still talk normally without sounding breathless, but may find it difficult to sing. In fact there are many smart phone apps nowadays, that can tell you if your speed is right as well. A few of the apps you can check out are- simply walking, Pedometer, Map my walk etc. If you are inclined towards fitness gadgets, you can search for the same as well, which also do the same work.

There are ways to motivate yourself into walking every day. You could use it as an excuse socialise. Most neighbourhoods now have walking tracks in the parks or within housing complexes. You may find like minded or same aged people to join you by forming group or you may use this as Me Time to analyse your thoughts. You could choose to set targets and celebrate when you are any of your group member achieve the same. The targets could be in terms of distances, the number of steps or time taken to cover particular distance. In my case the target is always to cover the distance in particular period of time.

Once you start walking, it becomes like an addiction, and  if on some day,  for any reason one misses the walk then there is a feeling that something is amiss today.

Waiting for your views/comments/feed backs.

Anil Malik

Mumbai, India

28^th May 2020.