I Would Walk 10,000 steps; The Walking Challenge

Image by Bindalfrodo, copyright protected.

Rose, a mental health activist and blogger, talks about her walking challenge to help with depression. She also shares tips on how to fit extra walking in your daily routine. You can follow Rose on Twitter and read her blog.

My challenge this week is to start walking 10,000 steps each day. This is roughly equivalent to five miles.

The reason why I chose this was that this amount of activity is meant to be the minimum for transitioning from sedentary to at least lightly active.

This means accumulating steps while I’m at work;

• Remembering to get up and move every hour.
• Taking the stairs and not the lift.
• Going for a walk at lunchtimes and not staying in (good for grabbing vital sunlight too).

Also during the weekend it would force me to get out of the flat more and, weather permitting, indulge in one of my favourite activities which is countryside and canal walks. In fact even walking about the semi-rural housing estate/new build village I live in (assuredly much more charming than it sounds) can be lovely on the right day.

So I walked on Monday after a terrible weekend of rain, even though I was once again tired from depression and did not feel like it.

Here's what I came across on my walk around the village:

Images Rose's own, copyright protected.

So walking, will that be effective at helping my depression? It works for some people apparently, but let’s just take this a day at a time.

“If you can’t fly then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward.” 
― Martin Luther King Jr.

You can find the original version of this piece on Rose's blog. 

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