It's no secret that walking and nature are both good for our mental and physical health. But for those living in a city or urban environment access to fields, forests and gardens can be difficult to achieve without the need to travel to get started.
Foundations Counselling, LLC have some innovative ways to support those struggling to get their fix and ways in which to incorporate walking into daily life. Finding streets with plenty of trees and listening to music whilst walking are just two suggestions. The benefit of drowning out some traffic noise and replacing it with something more therapeutic is a really easy change to make.
Walking itself will bring about some benefits. The US Arthritis Foundation reports twelve benefits concluded from numerous studies. These include:
Women who walked for 30 minutes a day reduced their risk of stroke by 20 per cent (Harvard School of Public Health in Boston).
A California State University, Long Beach, study showed that the more steps people took during the day, the better their moods were.
A study of 6,000 women, aged 65 and older, by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, found that age-related memory decline was lower in those who walked more.
You can see the full list of benefits here.
UK Mental Health charity Mind has Ideas to try in nature that extend beyond walking and includes activities such as growing and picking food, bringing nature indoors and helping the environment. All are beneficial to supporting good mental well-being.
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