When Is the Best Time to Go for a Walk? - Walking Challenge Day 4

Forget Fight Club, let's talk walk club.

Dive into the mood-boosting benefits of morning walks and the stress-melting magic of evening strolls. Find your flow, embrace consistency, and celebrate every stride.

This is day 4 of the walking workout challenge, part of the Walking and Talking with Helen podcast. In this episode, you’ll learn the best time of day to walk, the benefits of both morning walks and evening walks, and how finding the right time of day to walk helps with stress relief, mood boost, and mindfulness.

Highlights:

Morning walks:

• Mood-boosting sunrise stride: Why you should ditch the snooze button and greet the day with a walk that jumpstarts you. Awaken your body and get focused and ready to face your day.
• Habit forming: Morning walks are the cornerstone of building good habits. Get those steps in first thing and watch all your other healthy choices fall into place.

Evening walks:

• Stress-melting evening routine: Leave the day's baggage behind with each sunset step. Trade deadline anxiety for fresh air and gentle movement, melting away tension and paving the way for a peaceful night's sleep.
• Unwind and recharge: An evening walk is border between work mode and relaxation mode. 

Consistency is key:

Whether you're a morning person or a night owl with late-night energy, finding the best time of day for you to walk makes all the difference. 

Join in on our walking challenge wherever you can – outside, at home, at the mall, or at the gym.

If you're walking outside, at the halfway point there’s a bell so you can turn around if you want.

This walking challenge is for everyone at every level..

Make sure you catch all the challenge episodes:
Day 1 - The perks and benefits of walking
Day 2 – Tips for mindful walking
Day 3 – Setting intentions for the challenge and your walks

Resources mentioned:

• Seasonal affective disorder (SAD) light therapy la
• Notebook to make notes about what you observe during the challenge 

P.S. Share this walking challenge with your friends and family
 

Transcript

What is the first rule of Fight Club? We don't talk about Fight Club. That is the first rule of Fight Club. Now, we're not really going to Fight Club today, but we may have a little disagreement between morning versus evening walks. 

For morning people—where the early bird gets the worm—I've got some tips for you and the benefits of walking in the morning. And for us night peeps, don't worry, I've got you covered there.

I am a little bit nasally because I had a sneeze fest for some reason. We’ve talked about how to incorporate mindfulness. We want to pull those same concepts into every single walk that we do.

So if you're a morning person, this is going to make you happy because morning walks are a really good and positive way to start your day. And you've probably noticed this, but when you work out later in the day, something tends to come up. So your plan is, "I'm going to do this, I'm going to do this, I'm going to work, I'm going to do this." And then 12 other things happen and you can't get to the plan of walking in the evening or the afternoon. Um, so those who work out in the morning, go to class, or walk, they tend to have a better stick-with-it factor, right? Which is not really an official word, but we're going to go with it. They get it done, they get it over with, and then nothing else can come up in the way because that part of your day is already gone. But one of the great benefits of walking in the morning is that it boosts your mood. And it also helps you become more productive. It helps increase your focus and getting that blood flow puts you in that state of productivity and you're clear and you're ready to go and you're not as groggy.

It also helps you with your alertness, like we talked about. So a lot of times you wake up and we're groggy, but getting out there, fresh air, and especially if you get daylight or sunlight exposure, that really helps snap you out of that grogginess. And if you can make your morning walk a little brisker, it will really help with your focus and alertness throughout the whole day. If there is no sun or if you're walking before even the sun comes up, you might want to think about getting a SAD lamp if it's the winter months where you tend to not get out as much and not get as much sun exposure, because that will also help reset your circadian rhythm, which is your body's internal clock. But if there is light in the morning, getting out first thing is one of the best things you can do for yourself and for your day.

If you are that morning person, when you walk in the morning, you're starting your day with a healthy habit, which makes it easier to carry on those healthy habits throughout the whole day. And then look at it as a cornerstone for building your positive daily routine. So that is part of your cornerstone. It's a non-negotiable. You're going to walk in the morning, and then everything else will kind of piggyback off of that and you're going to build more and more positive habits on top of that one. Now for us nighttime peeps, there are many benefits to walking in the evening too.

One of them is potential stress relief because when you walk later in the day, you just start to reduce that stress or release that stress from the day. You can get away from anything that's been bothering you and you just take that moment for yourself. You're getting oxygen, you're getting time for yourself, you're getting some exercise, you're lowering your stress levels, which will also help you unwind for the evening.

And what would really be awesome is if you figure out if mornings or evenings work best for you, post a picture again of your walk or, your shoes or whatever you want to post and with a hashtag WalkTalkWithHelen and let us know. Do mornings or evenings work better for you? That way we, all of us can see what you're doing. Now go a little faster.

We need to wind down at night and sometimes we just can't wind down. I know my brain does not shut off. I was awake till four last night pondering the... I'm laying in my bed pondering the world and I couldn't shut my brain off because it had been raining. So I didn't go out for a walk in the evening, but it really helps give you that, you know, a chance to release those pent up emotions and it gives you a sense of relief after a busy day.

It also helps transition you into relaxation. So you're in work mode, you're in family mode, you're in dinner mode. You need that transition to help you rewind and get your mind ready for bed. Your transition to relaxation, that's going to really help you get better sleep.

For both morning and evening walkers. Getting out and walking will benefit you whether you do it in the morning or in the evening, but it really helps sink those hormones like your cortisol, your stress hormone, and your melatonin, which helps signal it's time for bed. Everything will help balance whether you get out in the morning, in the light, or in the evening. So both have benefits.

The most important thing is understanding your life, your preferences, and your energy. Because sometimes you just don't have the energy to get up early or you don't have the energy to walk later in the day. And so pay attention throughout the day. Like when do you feel the best? When do you feel the most energetic? Now when we are tired and, we're not feeling super energetic, going for a light moderate walk will actually give you more energy. I usually say that exercise is the one thing you can spend and get more of because if I spend more money, I'm not going to get more money usually.

So with exercise, the more you spend, the more you get. So in terms of energy. You know, you spend that energy and then you get more back, but pay attention to where you feel the best and where you think you can be consistent because it's all about consistency. Our bodies are meant to move and we don't move them enough and our bodies really need this. They really need this time.

Now let's think about how are you going to fit walking into your schedule doesn't matter if you're a morning person or a night person: What are your work commitments? What are the daily activities like when are the best times for you to go for a walk? Not just how you're feeling energetically. What can you realistically commit to? What can you realistically do every day? Can you do mornings even though you're not a morning person? Does that work better for you if you're, you know, tend to be sleepier at night, but that works out better in your schedule. Maybe if you have kids and after they've gone to bed, is that what's going to be the best for you?

You have to adjust the walking times to fit you, your life, your preferences, or whatever your schedule is. Get a notebook for this whole challenge and if something comes to you, just write down like, where do you think you can fit in your walking? When do you have the most energy?

What works best in your schedule? As we talked about, I think yesterday or the day before, we talked about making a backup plan. So if you can't do it here, then that's your plan. Because if you have a backup plan, you're more likely to stick to it. If you don't have a backup plan, you're most likely just going to blow it off if it doesn't fit. And you can also break it up. You can break it up even five minutes in the morning, five minutes at lunch, and five minutes before bed. Okay, that's not that much, but you know what? It's better than nothing. And it does get you out there and gets you more creative.
I think a cute little notebook would be actually the best thing to do. And you can take notes from your thoughts that you may have during this whole challenge. Cause this is going to get you started. That is the point of this to get you started, get you out there, get you going and then start to realize how good it feels to exercise, how good it feels to walk. Because I forget, I forget how much I like to exercise and I don't do it for awhile. And I'm like, okay, well when I do it, I feel so good. I'm like, well, why did I stop? I don't know.

Every walk is a small win. Every walk that you accomplish means that you've done something for yourself that you normally wouldn't and all those little accomplishments, all those little wins will add up. I'll see you tomorrow.