Diet Fitness Health

Walking is known to provide clear health benefits for your body. It’s good for your heart, helps you burn calories, and it is good for your circulation.

But here is something else for you to think about: why not use your walking as a time for meditation?. Most people start walking because it’s an excellent form of exercise, injuries are rarely experienced and there is no learning involved. Easy, easy, easy.

There’s no special equipment required. You just start walking and you are immediately on the path to excellent health. If you combine this with meditation, or mindful walking, you will find the benefits immeasurable.

What is walking meditation? Walking meditation is when you consciously focus on your every step. No need to increase your speed, in fact, you will more than likely begin by walking at a slower pace so you can get the hang of the practice of meditating while walking.

When you focus on your walking, focus on how it feels as you raise your foot then place it back down, one step at a time. The practice of mindful walking has its roots in Buddhism, in particular the art of Ayatana. Christianity also has its version of walking meditation: walking the labyrinth.

Utilizing mindful walking helps you focus on the present. As you become more skilled at concentrating your focus on your footsteps and not on the troubles of your day, you will find your stress melting away.

The most familiar forms of meditation have you sitting with eyes shut, concentrating on mental clarity. With mindful walking, your eyes are wide open, taking in the outside world. This gives the walker the opportunity to get outside of the head and all its chatter; a very valuable experience, especially for westerners.

Here are some general instructions for walking meditation:

* It is best to conduct your walking meditation in an area that you are comfortable with.

* Attempt to walk for a 20 minute time period. If you find that is too long for you, then you may want to begin with a 5 minute period and work your way up to 20 minutes.

* Start walking with a relaxed posture.

* Focus on the sensations in your feet as they lift off the ground and touch the ground.

* Let your arms hang down in a relaxed manner.

* As you walk, keep your focus about 3 to 6 feet in front of you.

In conclusion, mindful walking is a practice that is easy to implement into your daily exercise regiment. Not only will you be helping your body out, but you will be taking your exercise program up a notch by improving your mind and spirit.

Just start walking.

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This entry was posted on Friday, May 16th, 2008 at 8:02 am and is filed under Health. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.