In recent years, walking has been increasing in popularity. Online challenges like 10,000 steps-a-day have been giving walking a lot of attention to being a form of exercise. But, if you live with Multiple Sclerosis (MS), you be wondering if walking would be right for you.
So is walking a good exercise if you have MS, and what are the benefits? Walking is an excellent exercise if you have MS. It’s low impact and requires a lot less demand from your nervous system than other activities. You can pace yourself accordingly on how you feel without sacrificing the many benefits from walking that will help you manage your MS symptoms such as:
- reduces depression,
- reduces fatigue,
- strengthens muscles,
- improves coordination,
- increases bowel movements,
- increases your vitamin D intake,
- and better weight control.
If you’re shocked by how much benefits there is from walking, then join the club.
A few months ago, I pushed myself to get outside more and start walking. I started only being able to walk about 3000 to 4000 steps a day. Eventually, I worked my way up to being about to do 10,000 steps a day.
Let me tell you, the benefits I’ve experienced has helped me feel better about myself and to manage my MS symptoms.
If you are unsure how much these benefits can help you. Then let me do a deep dive into each of the benefits and how it helped me.
Reduces Depression
Unfortunately depression is a common symptom of MS and it sucks.
In the last two years, I’ve been battling with depression. I’ve seen a physiologist and taken anti-depressants. The pills just made me feel worst. The physiologist did help to identify some external issues that I may want to consider resolving, but the depression kept lingering on.
It was not until I started walking where things began to change. I was feeling better, more confident, and felt like I was able to gather my thoughts together more.
This was such a big win for me and felt ecstatic that perhaps I don’t have to live with depression day in and day out going forward.
Was my depression completely gone? Nope, I still have on and off days.
Is my depression reduced from what it was before? Heck, ya! I have way more happy days than sad days now.
I just want to be clear. I’m not advocating for you not to see a doctor if your feeling depressed, and walking will solve everything. You should see a doctor if you’re feeling depressed. What I’m saying is that walking helped me with my depression, and you should view walking as another tool to battle depression.
There have been lots of studies looking at the benefits of exercise and how it can help combat depression. Check out this article from Mayoclinic.org, and this article from sciencealert.com, and this article from the MS Society of Canada.
Don’t take my word for it. Take a read on some of these articles for yourself.
Reduces Fatigue
Do you hate the MS fatigue? I know I do! Because I struggle with Fatigue every damn day.
If you find yourself in the same boat as me struggling with fatigue, then I got some good news.
Walking will actually help to reduce your fatigue.
Now before I lose you let me guess what you are probably thinking. “I barely have the energy to finish my day, and you’re saying for me to go for a walk … how is that going to reduce my fatigue!?”
I know I know but let me explain.
Walking will allow you to work out your muscles, your heart and getting that blood pumping and even lose a bit of weight in the process. All these factors contribute to you feeling more energetic, thus reducing fatigue.
Now I’m going to be upfront with you. Walking will be hard to start and even harder to be consistent. But consider this, it takes more energy to struggle with fatigue and just make it through your day than to spend the bit more effort to make your daily activities easier eventually.
Listen to your body and take days off when you need it, I take days off depending on how I feel. But realize that your body will do a lot of complaining to avoid you from walking.
How many times does the alarm clock in the morning go off and your body is saying, “Don’t go to work, I just can’t do it … Just call in sick!” then you find yourself at work. Your body was complaining, and you did not give in and pushed yourself to go to work. Do the same thing with walking, and I promise you that it will give you a bit more pep in your step.
Strengthens Muscles
If you carried 120 pounds around every day, would you expect your body to get stronger?
Pretty sure we can all agreed the answer to that question would be yes.
Walking does just that! Every step you take is like carrying around 120 pounds. How can you not expect your body to get stronger!
But why is this important if you have MS?
MS does not affect the muscles directly, but it does affect the signals that activate your muscles. MS causes these signals to become weaker over time, and a weak signal reduces how much you can utilize your muscles.
Think about muscle utilization the same as buying a Honda, but you can only use 10% of its power.
Reduced muscle utilization makes everyday activities harder, which will tire you out, making you do less activity. With less activity, your muscles become weaker. And over time, MS causes your muscle utilization to become worst, and the cycle repeats.
Being stronger, will increase your baseline strength. Having a higher baseline allows you to be stronger despite a lower muscle utilization compared to if you do not do anything with a higher utilization.
Here is an example of what I mean: Person A could lift 100 pounds, but once diagnosed with MS, they could only use 75% of their normal strength. Person B could lift 125 lbs, but once diagnosed with MS, they could only use 65% of their normal strength.
| Person A | Persona B | |
|---|---|---|
| Before MS: Weight That Could Be Lifted | 100 lbs | 125 lbs |
| Muscle Utilization After MS | 75% | 65% |
| After MS: Weight That Could Be Lifted | 75 lbs | 81 lbs |
I hope this helps you understand how important it is to start exercising and to do more walking. I promise you the stronger you get, the easier it will be for you to get through your day.
Improves Coordination
Have you ever felt unstable on your feet? Or a lack of coordination when trying to move your legs?
Well I got some good news!
I found out when I walked more my coordination improved!
I thought this was in my head until I ran into this interesting article from the New York Times – “Even a 10-Minute Walk May Be Good For The Brain”. The article talks about a study looking at how exercise improves the neuro-connection between the brain and muscles. If you are interested in reading the article, you can read it here.
Increased Bowel Movements
Ready for some dirty talk? If not, well to bad.
Do you, at times, feel a bit constipated or feeling backed up? Heck, do you have irregular bowel movements?
There are lots of contributing factors that can cause this, such as other medical conditions, diet, and stress. A possible factor that might contribute to these issues is the lack of physical activity.
People with MS who experience fatigue usually have less physical activity. But our digestive system needs physical activity to help keep things moving. This is called “intestinal peristalsis”.
By walking more increases your physical activity. So if you are experiencing any issues going “Number 2”, try getting in more steps in a day.
Increase Your Vitamin D Intake
There have been plenty of studies done looking at the connection between MS and vitamin D deficiency.
Vitamin D is known to have a significant role in the brain, nervous system, and immune system health, which is why there are a lot of studies done linking MS to vitamin D.
But where do you get vitamin D from?
Well, you can get Vitamin D from foods, supplements, or your body can make it naturally from skin exposure to the sun.
That is right! Your body can produce vitamin D naturally from being exposed to direct sunlight … Just another benefit from walking more.
Don’t believe me? I found this article from Medicalnewtoday.com that recommends sending 10 – 15 minutes a day in direct sunlight a few times a week will be plenty for you to hit your recommended dosage of vitamin D. You can check out the article by clicking here.
Just be aware if you apply sunscreen, it will significantly reduce your body’s ability to absorb the sun’s rays, thus limiting your production of vitamin D. If you choose to wear sunscreen. you will need to be outside longer to absorb enough sunshine or apply a lower SPF rating sunscreen.
Better Weight Control
Do you know what the worst part is about struggling with fatigue? It will make you fat!
Get it? fat-igue!
Walking will help you burn some of that stubborn fat along your mid-section. Now I will admit walking 15 minutes a day does not seem like much, and you would be right.
You can expect to burn, on average, about three calories for every minute of walking. That means you could burn a whopping 45 calories in 15 minutes. Eating ten strawberries is worth about 45 calories. Yea, you did not burn very many calories at all.
The magic is by consistently going for walks. If you walked 15 minutes every day of the week, you would’ve burned about 315 calories. That is about the same amount of calories as a slice of pizza.
Now we are talking!
Now, if you kept going for walks and pushed yourself to add a minute here and there slowly, then calories burned starts to add up.
Combine that with better food choices and reducing refined sugars, you are on your way to steady weight loss. Easy as that!
Do I Plan To Stop Walking Anytime Soon?
I’ve been walking consistently for about the last three months now, and I can safely say that I plan to keep walking.
I started off only being able to walk about 3000 steps a day, and now I can go over 10,000 steps. I feel much better in every facet of my life, including losing weight. Currently down 10 lbs!
If you’re looking at, including walking into your life is to listen to your body. It’s ok to take a day off or two if you need it. Also, it helps to find a trail that you enjoy walking, drag someone with you on your walks, or even listen to an audiobook or music.
I’m lucky to have a few trails nearby where I live that I love to do. I also got into the habit of doing morning walks with a coffee on the weekends, listening to audiobooks, and going for walks as soon as I get home while I still have the energy.
Also, don’t feel like you have to squeeze all your steps in at one time. It’s best to spread them out throughout the day.
So what are you still doing reading this!? Get outside right now and go for that 15 minute walk. You’re one step away from feeling much better than you are right now.