A BRISK 10 minute walk can improve your emotional state. Regular physical activity can increase your self esteem and reduce stress and anxiety.
“One way to enhance our mental well-being and protect our mental health is through participating in physical activity,” says a report from the Mental Health Foundation.
It can be invigorating to walk alone, no matter what the weather. Not that I do that much walking these days, since our dog died. The dog was a reason to go tramping across the fields and through the woods and it certainly helped clear the mind.
Out alone in the countryside, it didn’t seem daft to talk to horses and sympathise with cows. I mean, what sort of life does a cow have? Not even Emmerdale to watch and the best it can hope for is a roll in the mud.
Walking made me quite philosophical.
I also enjoyed the trips to the Dales I undertook with old friends Ratbag and Donkin. Ratbag and I never took it seriously.
Donkin, an adventurous type who has crewed a sailing ship around Cape Horn, did and was always fully equipped for every eventuality.
Oh how we laughed when, weighed down with compass, plus-fours, survival blanket and cold potato sandwiches, he guided us by map reading from a location where we had never been to another we did not wish to go. Still, it had a pub.
We were as gormless at walking as Jerome K Jerome’s three men were in a boat, or Compo, Clegg and Foggy would have been attempting the Matterhorn. But we had fun, which is the main point. And the memories linger on.
Walking, whether solo or in the camaraderie of a group, is grand medicine.
