Walking Facts and Tips

Music boosts workouts. In one recent study, women who listened to music while walking lost more weight and body fat and were more likely to stick to their routines than those who did not, according to researchers at Fairleigh Dickinson University, in Teaneck, New Jersey.

Regular walking prevents colds. Women who walked briskly for 45 minutes a day, five days a week, were much less likely to get colds than women who didn’t walk, according to a study by the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, in Seattle.

Walking on cobblestones lowers blood pressure and improves balance, according to a study conducted on older adults that was published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society in 2005.

Walking with a crowd is safer. The more pedestrians there are at a given intersection, the less likely any walker is to be struck by a car, according to a study published in Injury Prevention in 2003. More people, the authors theorized, make drivers more careful.