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Alarm doesn’t wake you but you are already a few seconds awake, eagerly waiting for the alarm to ring. You get ready, tighten the shoelaces, hit the dark road, morning after morning, months after months, years after years, all seasons. That’s what the habit of 10,000 steps does to you, once started. Of course, it never starts this way. You just don’t want to get up. “I will definitely start tomorrow” is the first thing that comes to mind followed by a series of creative excuses.
TIWIW way of getting 10,000 steps is literally putting one foot in front of the other… again and again and again.
Yogita Ajgaonkar, Founder, TIWIW
Many fitness experts recommend to start with 10,000 steps, you can slow walk, pace walk or run, to complete 10,000 steps a day. Today, 10,000 is commonly used as the default goal on wearables and smartphones.
According to Dr. I-Min Lee, an expert on step counts, prof. of epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, the 10,000 – steps target became popular in Japan in the 1960s.
A Local clockmaker, hoping to capitalize on interest in fitness post the 1964 Tokyo Olympic Games, mass-produced a pedometer with the name ‘Manpo-kei’, when written in Japanese characters, resembled a walking man. It also translated as “10,000-steps meter,” creating a walking aim that, through the decades, somehow became embedded in our global consciousness — and fitness trackers.
But does walking those many steps really help ?
According to a recent study, among older women, as few as approximately 4400 steps/day was significantly related to lower mortality rates compared with approximately 2700 steps/day. With more steps per day, mortality rates progressively decreased before levelling at approximately 7500 steps/day and the risk of premature death by about 40 percent.
There are number of well-documented health benefits of walking, which include reduction of your risk of common health problems, such as: Heart disease, Obesity, Diabetes, Depression, etc.
With all these health benefits, with our personal experience, we would add one more important benefit, an hour of complete peace, complete me time. For the time you spend in taking steps, you have complete peace of mind, the space you can use to think peacefully, plan your day. Also, the dynamicity, which gets you in flow can be used to solve some otherwise critical problems by applying more creative solutions.
Now all this is good to write, how does one start ?
Results of walk or Run are seen after some time and they are not instantly gratifying as our brain seeks. Being extremely self-motivated is good in self-help books and Human resource management case studies, it is not so easy for all of us common folks.
Science of persuasion broadly divides the journey of habit formation in three categories:
1. The Trigger
There should be an interesting trigger, internal or external, for any behavioural change. Now rather than waiting for an external trigger such as doctor’s advice, it is better we create our own internal triggers.
There are many walkers and runners groups these days. One can start by finding one in the locality. You can find some very interesting people in these groups to walk with.
One can also imagine the perks of looking fit, trust us, there are many. Any discussion or meeting starts with people complementing you for your fitness. If you have a pet, it would help to take a walk with it. It is a good motivator and also a stress buster.
2. Easy Achievements
Set easy to achieve/ small initial goals, no one can start with running a marathon. Start with as low as 15 minutes of walk. Then gradually increase the milestones. Don’t force yourself to achieve larger goals initially.
3. The Rewards
One needs to reward oneself for achievements. You can set some small rewards for yourself. Set pacts with yourself such as you would buy or eat something that you like only after 100 minutes of walk per day. This will be your #tiwiwmoment.
First few days will be challenging, and after that you would hate missing a single day, walking is one habit that helps. This festive season, the best gift you can have is either a fitness watch or fitness gear and you can get all that by sharing your wish with your friends on TIWIW. Whatever your goal, remember: every step matters. Happy trails!
and adopt a conscious lifestyle, checkout the TIWIW App now!
What do you think?