I have been frequently walking for years. I cannot recall exactly how many, but a fair assumption would be for about twelve years.

My former boss, now retired, is the one who got me started on it. He walked throughout his lunch hour nearly every day for years, and I followed in his footsteps and began walking during my own.

I also have a dear little baby girl who we adopted back in 2009, and I have been her primary walker since that time. Sure, your kids may say that they will walk a dog if you get one but, in actuality, yours truly has taken her for walks roughly ninety percent of the time over the past dozen-and-a-half years.

But no worries! I like walking.

Because it is well-known at my workplace that I walk most days, I was peer-pressured into entering a thirty-day walking challenge through the month of September.

With over half a million steps that month and six million for this year, this story may be somewhat overdue.

This may be my personal record year (or close to it) for walking and I am actually fairly proud of the six million steps and 2,800+ miles that I have covered. I have walked mostly by myself, but also have covered quite a few miles with my son, somewhat less than that with my sweet baby, and a few dozen or so of them with my better half.

Walking daily provides many benefits to a person, and not just to your body. The prevailing wisdom is to walk at least 10,000 steps per day which, for yours truly, would amount to about four-and-a-half miles.

Going for a daily walk is one way to overcome a sedentary lifestyle that so many of us Americans suffer from. It is one of the easiest and most beneficial exercises and activates several physical and chemical processes that help improve health.

The following are seven benefits of walking. There are undoubtedly more, but these are a few that may get you to contemplate putting one foot in front of another more often in the new year.

1. Increases your energy level

Are you feeling sluggish? Have difficulty concentrating? It is likely that you are running low on energy. If so, a short walk can serve as a remedy to improve your physical and mental productivity.

When you walk, your circulation is optimized. And, thanks to this, the cells receive enough oxygen to stay active.

2. Better cardiovascular health

Being an activity that helps improve circulation and burn calories, walking offers significant cardiovascular health benefits.

Daily walking at a brisk pace improves the heart rate to pump blood without difficulty. And, in this way, prevent hypertension.

It is a good supplement for increasing the levels of good cholesterol (HDL) and reducing bad cholesterol (LDL) and triglycerides.

Thus, walking is an exercise that lowers the risk of heart attack, stroke, and arterial disease.

3. Lose some excess weight

Like all cardiovascular exercises, walking is a great alternative to increase energy expenditure. And, incidentally, fight against overweight and obesity.

Although it is not a miraculous activity to rapidly shed pounds, walking daily increases calorie burning and lowers body mass index. The faster the steps, the more they help in removing fat.

Since September 1st, I have gone down about three to five pounds, depending on what time of day I weigh myself.

4. Tones your legs and buttocks

Going for a daily walk can be helpful if you want to have toned legs and buttocks. When you walk, the muscle groups in the lower body must exert more effort. Over time, your calves and quadriceps get stronger.

If you walk in steep places, like a hill or a mountain, you will firm your buttocks.

Who doesn’t want a more toned butt?

5. Improve your bone health

When we devote at least half an hour of our day to brisk walking, our bones benefit too.

It strengthens your bones, which decreases the loss of bone density, thus reducing your risk of suffering from osteoporosis. In addition, daily walking reduces the level of tissue inflammation and thus prevents chronic conditions such as osteoarthritis.

If you walk during the day, your vitamin D levels increase with exposure to the sun, which helps you better synthesize calcium.

6. Helps prevent anxiety and stress

Moderate exercise is one of the healthy habits that can help improve your emotional well-being, reducing stress, and episodes of anxiety.

When you walk, serotonin and endorphins are released into your bloodstream, thus improving your feeling of well-being.

As walking optimizes oxygenation of your brain, it counteracts the negative effects of oxidative stress, a factor linked to depression and irritability.

7. Helps spur great ideas

As I mentioned, I began my walking journey about a dozen years ago during my lunch hour at work.

Soon upon starting at my current place of employment, I was asked to take my lunch at 12:30, which I found most agreeable, to make sure that our department had coverage at all times.

I have taken my lunch break at that time ever since. About once per week, I have a lunch meeting, thus it is not written in stone that I have a break at that time every single day.

I have a stressful position as an economic development official for a suburban municipality in the Chicago area.

Many mornings, urgent challenges and other seemingly unsolvable problems come my way, often before or soon upon my arrival. By 12:30 PM many days, I begin to feel overwhelmed and have difficulty focusing on problems and their solutions.

That is when I wolf down my sandwich or leftovers, then head out the door for a walk.

I have found that even when I try to put work out of my mind as I walk further and further from my office, often when I am about midway through my walk, a potential solution comes into my mind. Sometimes it just pops into my head as I am contemplating a grove of trees or viewing a pond.

As sure as anything, if I have two or three solid ideas in a day, they typically come to me while I am out walking. Not when I am sitting at my desk or answering a phone call or sitting in another pointless meeting.

At least for me, putting my feet on the sidewalk or path or street gets my synapses firing more quickly, thus producing better ideas than when I’m sitting or standing at my desk.

So are you immersed in a sedentary lifestyle? Motivate yourself to walk for thirty minutes a day. I do not know you, but I am sure that you could cut out a half-hour of doing something else and walking instead for one forty-eighth of the day.

Once you get into that habit, double it to an hour per day.

Once you take that first step, you are on the way to an important destination — better health.