Walking is a good thing to do and it is so easy for seniors with a little time on their hands. You just open the front door and start doing what you learned as a young child — put one foot in front of the other and start moving. It’s good for the legs, feet, heart, and lungs. In addition to these obvious benefits to walking, burning those nasty calories also comes in: the further and faster you walk the more you burn and the doctor will be happy with the results at your next physical checkup.
“I learned to walk as a baby, and I haven't had a lesson since.” -- Marilyn Monroe. See how easy it is?
Plot a good walking route that is comfortable for you and in familiar territory. Some say doing it with a friend or friends is good, but sometimes they can hold you back from your goals and results.
“You have to stay in shape. My grandmother, she started walking five miles a day when she was 60. She’s 97 today and we don’t know where the hell she is.” --Ellen DeGeneres.
Don’t do that. A long walk can be too long and you have a hard time getting back. Start small and short and build up to a good one, but come home for a cold drink and a relaxed seat in your favorite chair.
“An early-morning walk is a blessing for the whole day.” --Henry David Thoreau. Not only that, it can be a blessing for a positive future.
The mind is another part of the body besides those mentioned above that can benefit from long or daily walks. While walking your wits can wander, solve problems and come up with fun ideas. With one foot in front of the other there are no distractions — no TV, radio, stereo, other people’s voices to bother you. That is, unless you have plugged up your ears with some audio input, which is not a good idea in the first place because you won’t be able to hear an oncoming car/truck/bike or a voice yelling at you to watch out for the falling piano.
As you walk you can relate your thoughts to the present with an occasional shot into the past and even better, maybe the future. After all, our lives are shaped by our thoughts, our mind — we become what we think, what we plan. Seniors have a lot of tools (memories) to work with to decide what is good or bad, what will work or not. You have done it or seen others do it and can plan around it for a good future. The future, as we know, is time that has not yet come, events that have not yet happened, and the advantage with good planning, thinking, is the future doesn’t have to be a surprise, but mostly what you want and desire.
Walking in the fresh air with few distractions, and maybe with a pen and pad in your pocket so you can stop and sit on a bench or a rock and take a few notes to remember a thought, makes the walk itself the first plan which can serve as a model for the future. Seniors sometimes forget that they have a long future ahead of them in retirement. A good plan with good health will make that upcoming lifetime a blast.
Don’t forget to put on the thinking cap while you are walking.
Patrick M. Kennedy does full-service editing and writing and has published several books. http://www.abetterword.com/ and http://www.funwithretirement.com/