Walk Your Way to Beauty
Walking
Do you enjoy taking walks?
I've recently started taking short walks for my health and maintaining my youth. It feels really great to walk while you take in the change of the seasons. Walking helps a lot with my stress and relaxing. Let's use walking as a tool in creating a healthy and youthful body.
Walking is a great cardio exercise that delivers oxygen to your body. Continuing this exercise is great for the health of your brain as well, because of all the oxygen that is being delivered to the nerve cells in the brain.
Walking does not add any extra stress to the heart or the lungs, while it improves cardiopulmonary functions. Walking is great for all of your muscles, improves circulation, aids digestion, aids metabolism, and prevents obesity and life-style related diseases.
Preventing Osteoporosis
Osteoporosis is known to be much more common among women. As we get older, our bones become weaker and our ability to absorb nutrients from our food becomes more difficult; resulting in less growth hormones being produced.
Not getting enough exercise also contributes to osteoporosis. Walking is a great way to get exercise for your bones. Walking is said to increase bone density. Let's start walking to save our bones!
Your legs are your "second heart"
Your legs are the farthest body part away from your heart, so it is difficult for them to get the sufficient amount of blood that it needs to function. Walking acts as a pump that assists in getting the blood flowing to the rest of your body. The movements in the muscles are similar to the movements of milking a cow, which is where it gets its name "milking action". The milking action gets blood flowing and helps it flow back to the heart. The more you walk, the stronger your leg muscles will get, and will be able to better assist in this process.
Bad Cholesterol
Walking is also great for reducing bad cholesterol and increasing good cholesterol. Too much bad cholesterol can eventually contribute to arteriosclerosis. In order to prevent this from happening, you must be conscious of consuming a balanced diet, with healthy vegetable oils. Olive oil is great because it contains a large amount of oleic acid. I have 1or 2 teaspoons of olive oil every morning.
Walk like a model
The ideal way to walk is with a straight back and eyes looking straight forward, the chin drawn in a bit, knees stretched, and lifting from your toes and land on your heel.
Models always stretch out the backs of their knees as they walk. Consciously walking with big steps and thrusting your hips forward makes you look more youthful and beautiful. Let go of your shoulder muscles and relax, while swinging your arms in a good rhythm. If you learn how to walk in this relaxed way naturally, you can prevent accidents from happening and getting hurt.
Youthfulness begins from your feet
We have approximately 200 kinds of muscles in our bodies, and 650 muscles in our bodies all together. Two thirds of your muscles are located in the lower half of your body, and it is also said that the muscles in the lower half of your body are faster to deplete.
To keep your feet healthy, wear shoes that fit correctly, stand up straight with good posture, and walk on surfaces that are not only flat but go uphill and downhill. Climb some stairs. It’s important to walk at your own pace, every day.
If you don't have a lot of time to walk, raising your heels up and down helps relieves swollen legs. If you walk too much and your muscles get sore, it means that there are little tears within your muscles. Take the area as if wrapping it with both hands and gently massage upwards towards the heart. By massaging upwards, the blood and lymph fluid flow become much better, and your feet will feel lighter.
Take your ankle and gently press the outside and the inside of it with your fingers. Also massage the backs of your knees where there is a concentration of lymph nodes. This will help with circulation and make your feet feel lighter. Be careful as to not push too hard when massaging. Press gently, as if you were cradling your knee cap in your hands. I recommend doing this while sitting in a chair.
If you are going to massage the backs of your feet, stepping on a split piece of bamboo will do the trick. There are many pressure points on the backs of your feet and toes. It is said that the nerves in the big toe are connected to the nerves in the head and neck area, the second toe nerves with the neck and arms, the middle toe nerves with the liver and kidneys, the fourth toe with hips and intestines, and the small toe with your legs. When you massage yourself, it is more effective to do the entire area rather than just one specific point. If you carry a lot of tenseness in your shoulders, massaging the base of your second toe can make you feel more relaxed.
Wouldn’t it be ideal to live till a hundred years old, healthy and able to take care of yourself? Let's start walking more so we can stay healthy and happy.
Yuko Nishio
Yuko, also referred to as the anti-aging wizard, has been researching beauty and health for over 20 years and is the owner of the exclusive beauty salon "Natural Sage" in Tokyo, where her clientele includes royal families and A-list celebrities. She is also the founder of NNNY Skin Care, a premium skin care line initially created exclusively for her salon clientele.