Trip the light fantastic with a morning walk

LAST week was about how to walk, as we may be losing our natural swing in favour of the chair! This week is about when to walk. This is not such a daft question as it might at first appear. Obviously anytime is good, and preferable to never! But there are some times which are more ideal than others, if you have a day to play with.

So, this will enthuse a morning lark and be a little less fun for a night owl, but first thing in the morning is a great time to walk. This is

for a few reasons. The most obvious one is that you can feel virtuous and make sure you get some exercise in first thing, before the rest of the day crowds in.

It’s a bit of time and space for you to wake up in your own head and body and gives you a bit of “me time”.

Walking always helps thoughts to settle, whatever time of day we do it, but walking first thing in the morning helps plans for the day to gently emerge, get prioritised and also energises us to actually do them!

You also get a bit of a light injection first thing.

Light is the body’s timekeeper, so re-setting our clocks by getting a blast of the good stuff first thing, has a knock-on effect of helping our sleep patterns for the following night.

Light also fires up cortisol levels, waking us up properly for the day and shaking off the sluggishness of sleep. So it’s a real productivity booster. Morning light also triggers our brains to produce serotonin, our feel-good hormone, so is a free natural lift for those who struggle with low mood and depression. There’s also a link between light and heart disease.

Did you know that numbers of heart attacks go up in the winter months?

Volunteers exposed to bright light (10,000 lumens) between 8.30 and 9am for 5 days had an increase in a protein called PER2 which helps set the body clock, improves metabolism and strengthens blood vessels.

You’re going to be thinking of those dull and drizzly mornings now aren’t you?

But even a typical dark cloudy winter morning gives us more lumens (16,000) than indoor light (500-1,000).

If you can manage to walk before breakfast, even better, as we’ll talk about next week.

You can feel virtuous and make sure you get some exercise in first thing, before the rest of the day crowds

in.