Diabetics, Adding Life to Your Steps!

Going on a daily walk can lower your blood sugar and pressure. It can strengthen your legs, your heart, your lungs, and your circulatory system. It can improve your eye sight, relieve stress, and help with weight management. People who continue walking into their old age, tend to live longer and be less sickly. Children who grow up walking with their families tend to feel more connected to their family members and are also less sickly. There is so many reasons to start walking, if you haven't started yet, and so many reasons to continue walking if you have. But, walking the same route day after day, week after week, can become so boring as to almost feel like your putting yourself in a time-out. Particularly during the winter or colder months, with no leaves on the trees and no sunny weather to cheer you on, the long minutes of shuffling down the sidewalk can feel like an eternity. Though nearly every fitness walker has felt that way at one point in their walking journey, your daily constitutional doesn't need to be a drudgery. Your brisk strolls through your neighborhood can be a relaxing respite, it can be your daily adventure, it can be the highlight of the day that you look forward to every morning.

Five Ways To Add Interest into your Walks!

The problem with unpleasant walks isn't putting one foot in front of the other, humans have been walking up right for hundreds of thousands of years, the problem is seeing the same scenery so many times there's just nothing of interest during your walk. With a sharp eye and a little creativity, the same neighborhood, and the same distance can be refreshed into what feels like a whole new route.

It's easy to just tell people to find a different place to walk to get some variety, but in reality, there's a reason us walkers trudge around our neighborhood. For one thing, it's very convenient. All we need to do is step out our door and there's our gym. Another thing is that we don't need to drive to it, nor do we need to pull out a map on our phones to figure out the route. So for many walkers, it's better to just put up with a boring walk rather than deal with the hassle of finding a new route, traveling to it, and then having to deal with maybe getting lost along the way. That might be fun for a weekend trip, but it's certainly not something you would want to do daily.

So how can you jazz up your old, worn, and dowdy walking route?

1 Try Walking it Backwards

It might sound a bit silly, but it's surprising how different even a well known walking path can be with you are walking it in a different direction. Just the other day I tried this technique and found a cute little house hiding behind some big bushes that I never knew was there. I have lived in my neighborhood for over five years, and walked around my neighborhood hundreds of times, but I had never seen the little house because the direction I always walk kept the house concealed behind a tall hedge. So next time you find your walk a bit dull, try turning around and walking the other direction, you might be surprised at what you find!

2 Bring a Manual

There are a wide variety of nature manuals available in paper form or as apps on your phone. You can get manual to help up identify birds that are migrating through your neighborhood, or native plants, or mushrooms, or even what the shapes of clouds over head could mean for the coming weather. There are signs of nature everywhere, even if your are in the middle of a big city, and there are all sorts of information to help you observe all of them. In fact, in recent years it has been the work of sharp eyed citizen scientists that have identified new species of bees, flowers, and grasses in developed areas.

3 Play it Again

If sleuthing out nature isn't your thing, than maybe you would like a life played to music? If you've walked the same route long enough, you probably know pretty well how long it takes to walk it, so way not make a playlist of songs to listen to that's the same length? For morning walks you could choose up beat, energetic songs. For afternoon walks you could go for songs that help you focus. For evening walks, why not try some songs that are relaxing and help you de-stress? Still not sure which songs to choose? Don't worry, if you look around online, you are likely to find someone has already made a playlist of songs that's just right for your walk.

4 Bring a Friend

Walking with a buddy, can be encourages, energizing, and fun. Unfortunately, in this busy modern world it can be hard to find a friend whose schedule matches up with yours and can go for a walk when you are ready. But just because your friend can't be there in person, doesn't mean they can't be there for you. Why not just give them a call? If your walking path takes you through a park or someplace scenic, you could have your phone on Speaker, so they can hear the natural features you're passing. Maybe you could describe some of the nature that you are seeing. You could snap some pictures and send them, while you're at it. It's like a mini vacation that you are sharing with a friend.

5 Bring Your Senses

Sometimes the only thing that you need to do to see a common thing in a new light is to simply slow down and open up your sense to it. Even if you've strolled by the same garden a hundred times, next time you pass it, try taking a moment to close your eyes and listen carefully. Take a deep breath, what plants do you smell? How does the air feel? When you open up all your senses and really pay attention to the world around you, it can be surprising just how much more there is to see, hear, smell, and feel.