Putting your best foot forward – the benefits of walking

We keep seeing it on television, our phones, and over the airwaves – walking is one of the best exercises out there.

What makes it so? Save with SPP decided to prowl around the Interweb to see what people are saying about the health benefits of walking.

According to the Mayo Clinic, “regular brisk walking” can help maintain or manage your weight, “prevent or manage various health conditions” such as “heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure, several cancers and type 2 diabetes,” improve heart health and fitness, and build endurance.

As well, the article continues, walking helps strengthen your bones, boosts your energy level, “improves mood, thinking, memory and sleep,” reduces stress and anxiety and “improves your physical function and, in older adults, lowers fall risk.”

The Clinic suggests that “walking faster and farther” is linked to the best results. “If you are just starting out, slowly work your way up to walking faster and farther. Over time, you may notice you can walk farther in less time. This helps you get aerobic activity, improve heart health, build endurance and burn calories.”

The Prevention website chimes in on the health benefits of a nice brisk stroll, noting that it can help your cognitive function and overall heart health.

“Walking is an easy-to-do exercise that has so many benefits with very little risk of injury or death,” Adam Mills, exercise physiologist and cycling coach at Source Endurance, states in the Prevention article.

The key, the article continues, is to get in at least 30 minutes of walking per day.

And, the article says, all the stuff you read about aiming for 10,000 steps a day may be overdoing it.

“A 2021 study published in JAMA Network Open found that for people ages 38 to 50, 7,000 steps was associated with a lower mortality rate,” Prevention reports. “And a 2025 study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine found that people who walked a minimum of 4,000 steps daily at least three days a week had a 40 per cent lower risk of dying (prematurely),” the article adds.

Any amount of walking helps and is beneficial, the article concludes.

Last word to the folks at Harvard, who add a few “surprising benefits” we can achieve from regular walking.

A half-hour of walking briskly “counteracts the effects of weight-promoting genes,” the article begins. This, the article says, is a way to counter the risks and effects of obesity.

Interestingly, walking “helps tame a sweet tooth.” Research from the University of Exeter, the article reports, found that even “a 15-minute walk can curb cravings for chocolate and even reduce the amount of chocolate you eat in stressful situations. And the latest research confirms that walking can reduce cravings and intake of a variety of sugary snacks,” the article notes.

Walking regularly reduces your risk of breast cancer, “eases joint pain,” and can boost your immune function, the article reports. “Walking can help protect you during cold and flu season. A study of over 1,000 men and women found that those who walked at least 20 minutes a day, at least 5 days a week, had 43 per cent fewer sick days than those who exercised once a week or less.”

So, the next time you’re thinking of driving to the corner store for milk, consider putting on your running shoes and taking a stroll. You’ll be doing yourself – and your health – a big favour, while at the same time, saving a little on gas.

And a great place to park those savings is the Saskatchewan Pension Plan.

The SPP was created to provide a pension plan for those of us who don’t have one through work – or want to supplement any plan we do have. SPP is open to any Canadian with registered retirement savings plan (RRSP) room – you can contribute any amount you want each year up to your personal RRSP limit.

As well, you can transfer in any amount from other RRSPs you may have, to consolidate your retirement savings nest egg.

Funds deposited in SPP are professionally invested in a low-cost, diversified pooled fund. When it’s time to turn savings into retirement income, your options as an SPP member include the security of a lifetime monthly annuity payment or the flexibility of the Variable Benefit.

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