If you could receive a prescription that would:
- reduce your risk of Osteoporosis, Diabetes Type 2, Depression, Obesity, Heart Disease, and many forms of cancer
- lower your cholesterol
- reduce chronic pain
- boost your energy
- help you sleep better
- improve your posture
- enhance your self image
- tone and strengthen your body
- enhance your creativity
- require no special equipment, helmet, spandex or trail pass
- and it would be over the counter and cost you nothing except your time and commitment?
Would you do it?
If the answer is yes then you agree with Liz Ogren of Pedal and Roll and Stroll for Parkinson’s – getting off the couch is good for you! Movement is medicine for all of us. Getting outdoors and getting our daily dose of activity immersed in green space is, well, it’s like nothing else that we do in our daily life.
As the seasons change, it’s a great time to make a daily walk outdoors part of your lifestyle. Go out and open up your senses to smell, feel, see and hear how mother nature is moving past summer and into autumn. Your 30 minute walk will fill up your senses. Finish with tasting some of fall’s great harvest.
If you’re already walking, with or without poles, then challenge yourself to do some fall hikes out on the trails. Walk through the fields and the forests, wonder at all that is there just a short distance from the city. Theodore Wirth, Fort Snelling, Afton State Park, the Mississippi River Trails, all of the Three Rivers Parks – just a few of my favorites here in the Twin Cities. As the days get shorter the lights come on at Hyland, Elm Creek and French Park and you can walk until 10pm. There is no excuse not to go!