Walking Is Powerful Medicine

By Maggie Spilner

Maybe you want to lose a few pounds or protect your heart from disease or keep your bones strong and your joints limber. Walking can do all this and more.

Whether you're just starting a walking program or you're already a regular walker, your health likely played a role in your decision to get fit. Maybe you want to lose a few pounds or protect your heart from disease or keep your bones strong and your joints limber. Walking can do all this and more.

But when we talk about walking for health, we must look beyond the physical benefits. After all, health is a rich fabric spun from physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual threads. If one of these threads becomes frayed for any reason, it can weaken the entire fabric. What you eat, how much you sleep, how you handle your personal and professional relationships, how you view the world and your place in it -- all of these things influence whether or not you feel vital and strong. They also have a real impact on your body.

The same can be said of walking. It supports health in every sense -- physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. It enriches and balances your life. And it just plain makes you feel good. No wonder the Greek physician Hippocrates deemed walking to be "man's best medicine."

Boosting Immunity, One Step at a Time

To get a complete picture of how walking supports good health, you must start at the cellular level. A daily walk keeps certain cells -- your immune cells -- tuned up for action, ready to whip viruses and battle bacteria. In fact, some experts believe that walking may be one of your best weapons for fighting off infection and disease and getting on the road to recovery fast.

Strong statement? Maybe. But a number of studies have shown that a moderate walk not only relieves the stress that may trigger or aggravate an illness but also stimulates your immune system, your body's main defense against disease. In one such study, a 45-minute walk (about 3 miles) increased the activity of certain immune cells by about 57 percent. The cells' activity level returned to normal about 3 hours after the walk.

Now researchers don't know for sure whether walking can make you heal faster, but some studies suggest that people who walk consistently develop fewer illnesses than people who are sedentary. The fact that walking is a moderate activity may be key to its immune-enhancing effects. Indeed, other studies show that long bouts of intense exercise -- like an hour of pavement-pounding, heavy-breathing running -- can actually suppress your immune system and make you more susceptible to infection.

This brings up a question that I often hear from fellow walkers: When you're under the weather, should you continue your walking program or take off a few days until you feel better? One expert recommends this rule of thumb: If you have a headache or runny nose, or if you're sneezing, you're okay to walk as long as your temperature is normal. In cases of fever, sore throat, or coughing, you should rest until your symptoms subside.

Even if you feel well enough to continue walking, skip the marathons, races, and fun walks for the time being -- unless you have your doctor's okay to participate.