[Music] [Applause] [Music] Welcome to a new series every second Thursday of each month we present healthy living resources that will help you to live well and the hosts are three individuals that work with the Family and Consumer Sciences at the Ohio State University the College of food, agriculture, and environmental sciences and they have been working in a variety of different areas. Amanda woods is the healthy finance program specialist. Amy Meeham is the healthy people and Stacey Baker is with the healthy relationships and it's always great to have individuals come on and talk about ways that will benefit us and today we're going to be talking about benefits in walking. So I want to welcome Amanda woods and Amy Meehan. Hi, thanks Patrick. I'm Amanda woods I'm the healthy finances program specialist then I have a Amy in here at the healthy people program specialist and on this healthy living telecast we each month are gonna bring a topic to you and how stress impacts one of the areas of our lives. So whether it be healthy finances healthy relationships are healthy people we're gonna discuss how various stressors can impact those areas of our lives and ways that we can work to mitigate that stress but also improve our physical and mental health so today we have aiming the end if you want to tell us a little bit about what you do here in extension. Absolutely thanks so much for having me on today so like I'm in a said I'm a Mimi and the healthy people program specialists with OSU Extension and so I work in the state office on campus and I help support and coordinate any of the health and level programming for the state of Ohio. So we develop programming we evaluate our programming we love just creating programs for our community medicals. I'm out all across the state to help them live healthier better lives excellent well so today we are gonna discuss. So stress obviously impacts all of our lives and there are a lot of ways that we can lessen that stress and improve our health and today we're going to talk about walking So go ahead and tell us a little bit of the benefits of walking and how that impacts our lives so walking is a really great opportunity to engage and reflect with yourself and kind of help improve your mental health so walking physical activity in general but walking specifically can be a mood booster as you participate in physical activity. It releases endorphins in your bodies and those are kind of the happy chemicals that make us feel better and increase our overall mood walking can also help you feel and look better just by walking you get outside you get some time away from streams or work or the typical stressors that would play a role in your everyday life. With that walking typically if you do it regularly enough or vigorous way enough you could wind up losing some body size which is never a bad thing. So you might look and feel better about yourself. Eengaging in regular physical activity also helps to keep your muscles strong your bones strong and increases your cardiovascular health there are many different ways in which engaging in physical activity regularly throughout the week can help increase your overall health both mental and physical. It's indicated that about 200 minutes of walking a week is probably good enough to how do you see those benefits in your life. Still more research needs to be done with that but there were some studies that came out recently that were pretty rigorous that suggested that that 200 minutes of walking or 150 minutes which is what the healthy people regulations here the United States recommends participating in every week to see those benefits. So we're sharing that study now so the physical activity walking quality of life study that basically is what you said supports the fact that that walking everyday mm-hmm will help reduce stress and improve your sleep so if you have an interest in that we are sharing that screen with you here it's a very scientifically rigorous study it was conducted with I believe a thousand nine hundred four women in Australia and those women were followed for three plus years. So in scientific terms that's pretty significant that's a lot of people for a long period of time to really prove their point that walking can in fact impact your mental health in a positive way. Awesome great thanks Amy. So I love to hike which is basically walking on a trail and um so that's typically where I would choose to spend my time being physically active. For people who are maybe in more metro areas for people whose City might not be as walkable doesn't matter where they're doing the walking are their benefits to certain areas over oh how do you feel about maybe location. Sure so definitely just getting out there and walking at all is great that's wonderful. Wherever you can wherever you feel safe and comfortable that's what's important if it's convenient to lock down your sidewalk if you live in a suburban neighborhood that's great but we know that that's not always the case especially in cities even though there might be sidewalks you're gonna run into damaged sidewalks crosswalks lots of pedestrian traffic or vehicular traffic that could be dangerous or off-putting to go for walks So when thinking about that it would be great to possibly find in your fine park I believe a lot of local transit will have stops at parks or like a rec center for instance or across living I'm here in Ohio I know during the winter it makes it very tough to get outside and those really frigid temperatures and never wants to slug around in the snow or risk falling on ice. So a great alternative could be Milwaukee going to all near you again that local transit should have stops you can take as much time as you want to just walk around you'll be able to kind of look and see what stores are there you know kind of keep you entertained lots to look at basically. But walking a Nature does have its benefits that can be a really great way to like we kind of talked about earlier unplug from society and your screens and many other typical stressors that you might run into in a big city. So if you do have the opportunity to plan for a weekend height or something like that that would be great in terms of being able to really reflect on yourself and give those nature sounds and smells and experiences and for yourself that it can really help you stress. So I know that some people will go for maybe a several mile walk once a week and other people might go for twenty minutes a day is there is there an amount that we should be walking or how much should we be walking to feel the positive effects of walking but that our mental and physical health and should it be stretched out maybe over an entire week versus one or two days of more activity than not. Definitely that's a great question um the recommendation is to get at least 10,000 steps a day and that's roughly five miles of stepping but that doesn't need to be dedicated walking steps it's just the day a good dedicated walk could be maybe too far that's about a mile typically depending on your stride So with that 10,000 steps a day and mine as much as you can spread it out that would be the ideal that said if you do go for you know really long hike or something on the weekend 10 miles or whatnot upgrade to just trying to get that time in is what's important throughout the week and having that average of 10,000 steps over each day. That said, nobody says you need to go and do you know a 30-minute walk every day thirty minutes all together it can be 10 minutes here five minutes here 15 minutes here whatever makes the most sense for you to break it up. I mean everybody's different everybody has a different schedule and a different job so just being more aware of trying to be active and get those steps in throughout your day that's what's important. Definitely it's it's interesting that you say that everyone's different when it comes to walking I'm a very slow Walker and there have been times when I've been running and have been passed by people walking. So we also obviously have different speeds different lengths of legs that thing but is there a certain speed how fast we should we be breaking a sweat to gain the mental health benefits of walk game where it's simply going out and moving enough. Honestly there needs to be more research done with that in that study that we shared earlier. Does say that while they found from that specific study that about 200 minutes-ish of walking a week it's good the hope would be that you're walking don't increase your heart rate a little bit so that you get those extra cardiovascular benefits. What's really just getting out there and doing something that's already more than a lot of us are doing just by getting up from your desk and taking a walk around the building is wonderful. Can I ask a question on it? Well we have individuals that had stand at their desk is that the same as walking no only because you are standing in one spot so that you're not actually moving your muscles as much that's it it is better than sitting constantly so it's nice to have that variation but getting those actual active steps in is really important throughout your day so as much as you can think about doing that would be wonderful but standing is great because then you're not holding your muscles and certain positions for so long as you look sitting that are either stretched or flexed in certain ways that they might not be meant to be viewing that for hours at a time and that's why we have pmc back issues and things like that. Okay thank you. Definitely but 200 minutes is kind of what that study suggested and that's kind of the beauty of walking though is that really any age of Google ability Fitness ability wherever you're at walking is something that everyone can do well it's a low-impact way for people to be active and if they start really like walking they can upgrade the hiking which has a little more terrain involves rent you know and a strength that's required depending on where you're hiking you can upgrade to running if you want to go a little quicker get a little more cardio in but ultimately walking is just kind of a great gateway exercise activity to get you moving more on a daily basis and hopefully encourage you to be more active overall. Gets you out get your heart rate up and she's sweating I used to work with somebody who would go for walks every evening and then one day she decided to start running just out of the blue decided to just start running and then became a runner so it definitely kind of was that gateway activity for her that made her more active person but you know Patrick touched on one of his co-workers standing at work some people are don't have that ability you don't have the proper desk or um what about those people who spend a good portion of their day seated at a desk what can they do to help achieve a more active lifestyle absolutely that's a great question and unfortunately that is a lot of us do get stuck in these situations that we do have to sit at the desk for many hours a day. There are a lot of ways that you can still get your steps in whether it's a walk at lunchtime you you know 10 minutes that's nothing crazy hopefully everybody has enough time to do that you can take a walking meeting if you know you're gonna have a meeting with somebody you could instead of sitting at a table having the discussion a walk around the building. You could be really mindful of your time throughout the day and every hour whatever time stamp you put on it you get up and you go get a drink of water you go to the bathroom instead of sending somebody an email you can walk down the hall and talk to them in person you know. Any little way to get those extra steps in really counts you can also walk before you get to work you know walk in the morning you can walk to work if you have that ability if you don't live too far from where you are and it's safe to walk you're out there. You can walk after work a lot of people like to walk after dinner because that's a good way to help digest your food and decrease your blood sugar after you just consumed a lot of food there are definitely definitely different ways that you can try to fit those steps in even if you have a more restrictive job that forces you to be at your desk all day. That's great that's great okay so we've talked about benefits of walking on our physical health on our mental health. What are we doing an extension to help address this need how are we working to make it more accessible to the people of eye oh. Absolutely I'm glad you asked so we are working on a new initiative right now I'm gonna share this video with you guys as well to partner with a walking organization they are a nonprofit organization that was actually founded in Columbus Ohio that's where the headquarters are in Westerville called lock of the doc and so all of their walks are free they have tons of chapters all over the nation and internationally so you should be able to hopefully find a walk near you pretty easily and as you can see on their website here there is a little tab to join a walk and so that can take you to your state your city and can help you find the closest walk to you. So we are hoping to partner with them to start offering a direct opportunity for our clients to go walk with walk with a dock in conjunction with our dining with diabetes programming because the two really go hand-in-hand when you're trying to manage your diabetes physical activity is a great way to do that like I mentioned about walking after a meal that can help decrease your blood sugar which is component of managing your diabetes So be on the lookout we are starting to pilot this here in central Ohio on down and get this under way that if you have a dining with diabetes class with us you can also then walk with the doc at a location that will be determined. In the meantime feel free to take advantage of L'Aquila dock that's already existing like I said since they're headquartered in Central Ohio that you have many arcs across the whole state of Ohio so I hope you were able to find and connect with them and we're really excited to be able to offer our specific clientele through extension a way in which they can engage in physical activity as we've discussed today since there's so many benefits really that's doing that. Definitely so just a little bit more about walk with a dock what can somebody expect if they were to sign up for a walk like what would that walk with a dock experience look like for them totally typically the walk is an hour and you can walk for as little as if for as long as you'd like there's typically a set out path we make sure that the locations are in fact lockable so there's like a sidewalk you know things like that great to some walks like to be different and might have different variations of how they go about offering their walks a typically safe location lockable area accessible. A doctor or physician of some kind will lead the walk so they're typically the sponsoring physician and they will give a brief discussion on any medical topic that makes sense or is relevant rather at the time or what's trendy or what their specific specialization is to kind of get their group going on a specific topic and then the doctor will lead the walk around that path for the whole hour and then that leaves them open for the entire hour for participants to engage with them. They can talk about any of their own personal medical questions with the physician they can talk about whatever the physician gave his talk on whatever makes the most sense participants that have that opportunity to be with the physician and the physician has the opportunity to give back to his or her community members. If you don't want to walk the whole time there is a starting point where everybody will congregate and there's typically healthy snacks water available as you walk at your first lock you will get a pedometer so you can track your steps and hopefully that will encourage you to go walk on your own outside of the walk. Walking with a group like this is a great thing because it gives you that support system and extra motivation and accountability to get out there every day so if you're not somebody who's super interested in walking right off the bat or might need some extra motivation to do so this is a great opportunity because you can make some friends you can walk with after three walks you get a t-shirt that's a nice dry fit t-shirt This is one for the doc on it that you can wear to your walks so there are lots of different incentives that are offered throughout the year that are all walking related to help really encourage you keep up your steps throughout the week you when you're not walking with a dog but every place is a little different and every place is a little different and fun as a result so I encourage you to check it out. That's great the incentive of having access to a physician to run any questions by whether it be about the physical activity or not is definitely a great thing for people who might not have regular access to a physician so that's that's a great incentive So you mentioned that walking the dog would be partnering with what we do here at Extension can you tell us a little bit more about our our contribution to that partnership. Absolutely one last thing I walk with adoption just to reiterate it is free completely freedom that's a guy's fence all the incentives are free keeps showing up to the log engaging with the position all free which is awesome but yes for what we offer you extension. So the specific program that we're looking to partner with this walking group is called dining with diabetes that is our dining with diabetes management program which amended share share in the annals thank you so if you go to our website FCF.osu.edu you you will be able to find our different programming that we offer so this is specifically our dying with diabetes page so dining with diabetes it's a multi-part series that goes through what diabetes is kind of from a nutrition standpoint and how to manage your diet around your diabetes and then we also have a cooking demo portion. So not only you're learning what you should be doing additionally if you have diabetes or have a loved one with diabetes you then also get to experience trying to cook in a way that makes sense for somebody who is diabetic and you get to sample that food because our Extension educators will work with you to build the skills to prepare the foods that would be useful for either in and urine diabetes or someone in your household and so if you wouldn't mind scrolling down on our page here you will also find where our educators offer these courses the different counties they are in. So if you are looking for a class near you feel free to reach out to any of our educators or myself we also have a schedule towards the bottom from there that will show you any currently scheduled classes and classes get scheduled all the time and this website will be updated reflecting that. So feel free to take advantage of our classes and then the hope would be through this partnership as our classes are offered then we would also have a related walk that you could attend some time you're in a week as well so that you get that extra physical activity component involved. Sne other piece of dining with deities that we have to offer is an online course called dining with diabetes beyond the kitchen you're about to share that right now. So here we are dining with diabetes beyond the kitchen free online course anybody from register for it very similar material the only difference is that cooking demos cannot happen online typically but with the walks and offering more of an in-person support that way anybody who does the online course is also more than welcome to attend a walk with us so that they can engage with us directly. That said there are videos online that kind of walk you through like how to shop at a grocery store how to make decisions about your shopping and your nutrition it's a lot of similar content that's just easier to access if you don't necessarily have an in-person class offered right here County. So definitely lots of different options for you to engage with us that's great so how would somebody who had an interest in dining with diabetes beyond the kitchen how would they access this resource. Definitely there should be a link on our of CFC OSU GDU page here where they can just go it's where you can go to the site and you can sign up for free and select the class and then you'll be I believe it's on our 8 extension site that it will take you to so yeah you just sign up and create a free account this free class and once you get your profile set up and going one of our team members will then email you welcoming you and you can work through all of the modules and the quizzes at your own pace. There are also lots of resources listed different websites or other tools online that you can go visit and explore and then you have access to it for as long as you need. If I could if I could add one one thing Dewayne Rigsby along with Dr. Dan Remley usually the first Thursday of each month I believe at 10 o'clock. Has dining with diabetes program which is sort of adjacent to the some of the things that you're involved with and I encourage the listening audience There is a wealth of knowledge and information on that on those web pages because what diabetes affects how many out of a hundreds ten fifteen yeah quite a bit type 2 diabetes is just continually on the rise it's hard to know an exact statistic but it's a lot unfortunately yeah and I know that your program is very instrumental in helping people to live healthy and eat well regardless of whether you have diabetes or not so it's a good program anyone can benefit absolutely so we kind of started this podcast we started wanted to do this program because we saw there was a need to react to the various stress that we face in life the struts that kind of a company is chronic illness is you know massive. So especially if it's a newer diagnosis or something that's happened more recently kind of adapting to that and moving past that could cause anybody already significant amount of stress so knowing that these resources are here knowing that they can not only get active with walk with a doc or just are encouraged to be more active in their daily life but also that we offer the dining with diabetes portal as well for them to kind of stay on top and be more proactive about. Definitely living health dangers of your nutrition be more confident and the choices you make of the grocery store eating out still skills to put them home for yourself absolutely all of that would be hugely beneficial and you threw some stress in your life for managing a chronic disease can I ask a real quick question about the walking I know that many individuals also ride bicycles. So I know that bicycles is not walking but bicycles are not running either you know. So where is the bicycles involved with with the walking well I mean getting active at all is really important and if you prefer bicycling to walking or running that's fantastic it is low-impact so that's really important for somebody like myself I've had five knee surgeries so bicycling would be a great opportunity for me to engage in physical activity that's less aggressive or impact children running. That said though with walking there's a little more opportunity for those who might not be as comfortable on a bike or a staple on a bike really anybody can walk but with biking you might be a little more restricted if you have to like in the city limits you have to ride in the streets and not everybody is comfortable with that if alongside walk away of course so I'm just kind of keeping in mind those few different pieces whether you're walking or biking it's just whatever you're more comfortable with but being active either way that's what's important. That's interesting we know that through my lifetime smokers smoking went to everyone's doing it - lets you know Ohio State University is a smoke-free environment and we can see as the older generation gets going there's a lot of COPD and so just a quick comment since we only have one or two minutes left how does that help people with COPD, walking? Definitely I've not looked specifically into studies for people with COPD but getting out and breathing air and being in a more regular rhythm that walking of course you do in terms of your breathing you kind of gain that lung capacity and take better stronger breaths. So that might help you fight that type of lung disease if you are suffering from that type of a thing you know just being outside more regularly and forcing yourself to breathe more and build the muscles that also support your lungs you know as you're walking and that cardiovascular help that goes right along with that trying to just keep all of the parts of your body healthy um can impact for the best different product diseases. And I think it's important to also just kind of urge you know anybody to be active if it's not walking if that's just something that you don't enjoy and you know it's not something that you see is sustainable to find something that is sustainable for you this morning at the gym somebody made the statement that they they swim every day because they enjoy swimming man it's what gets them to the gym every day they really enjoy swimming if they were gonna be going and lifting or doing something else they probably wouldn't show up. So I think that it's good to just pursue something that you enjoy doing so that you are physically active on a regular basis and so that the best workout is the one that you will do right well very good you know I really learned a lot listening to we're listening to Annie Amanda woods and Amy Meehan who are with the family consumer sciences at the Ohio State University the Extension programs and they work with various different finance healthy finances healthy people healthy relationships and they are not just for the Columbus area they are a part of the whole Ohio Network and on a global basis so I really appreciate being able to talk with Amy and Amanda for healthy living. I'm Patrick Dale. Thank you for listening [Music]