We have all heard of those amazing health tips that can help us become better at anything. Turning into a great athlete isn’t going to happen overnight, but particularly not if you injure yourself by trying something out of your current physical limit.
However, anyone can walk, or rather, anyone should be able to walk, if they have functional lower extremities.
With that, it is good that today’s topic deals with brisk or fast walking and a recently discovered benefit of fast walking, which is slower aging. Does fast walking really slow aging down? Let us take a closer look.
It Actually Does – A Recent Study Summary
A recent UK Biobank study, published on April 20th, 2022, shows that walking pace matters for slowing down age. After testing over 400,000 applicants, their LTL was longer, indicating younger biological age. LTL stands for leukocyte telomere length and they are known to get shorter with age.
However, in this study, the applicants who walked faster than others, or rather, have been known to walk faster, which was tested with accelerometers, have shown to have longer telomeres, meaning that they were biologically younger.
The conclusion of the study is that overall, faster walking is much healthier than walking at a slower pace.
Why Do People Walk Slower?
There are many reasons as to why people would choose to walk slower rather than faster. Some of the reasons have to do with laziness, which tends to overcome people at a certain age, particularly if they have developed habits that come with a sedentary lifestyle.
Other reasons include not wanting to get sweaty or to look weird, which signal that external forces matter more than one’s own health. Walking faster is an easy thing to do and one that can basically make us healthier. One would only need to speed their pace up.
Should Everyone Walk Faster?
Absolutely. The faster you walk, the easier it will be for you to adapt to any new challenge, whether running or other physical activity. Faster walking prepares both the body and the mind for various other physical activities, meaning that the body will be less prone to injuries, should you decide to undertake another activity.
Fast walking is an exercise that pays out every single time you do it, but particularly if you do it for an extended period of time or rather, whenever you have the opportunity to.
You could start by simply walking to any of your destinations faster. Get going later and walk faster, but still be there on time. Time is a great motivator so use it to your advantage.
Brisk or fast walking can not only slow down the process of aging, but also make us healthier in many other ways, so speed up.