BLUE MONDAY BONUS: It's Good To Walk: JUSTIN EADE, WELLBEING SPECIALIST

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Thanks Vix for inviting me to do this for Blue MumDays.

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Really exciting opportunity.

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Congratulations to everyone who's already a parent or recently become

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one -amazing, deepest respect.

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Many blessings on your futures.

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I'm going to focus for a few minutes on something that most parents and

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new parents do manage to do every day that supports their health and

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wellbeing, 'cause that's an area that I've focused on for many years, and

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that's to get outside for a walk.

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So it doesn't just have to be when you're out walking the pram.

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It can also be when you've got some time to yourself,

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perhaps through some downtime.

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Even if it's 20 minutes, you can just escape, get out the house

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and do something for yourself.

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The focus really on that is getting a little bit more from that opportunity.

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Much of this people know already.

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That's the way I look at it, is that we know this stuff instinctively.

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If you've been alive, you've been doing all these things anyway.

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It's just sometimes there's a little bit of extra science that helps to motivate,

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and so I'm gonna share three focal points really, three kinds of techniques.

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The first one being that as soon as you do step outside the air outside a building

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generally is about five times better than the air on the inside of a building.

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So really the quality of the air, the vitality as it were, of the

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air for want of a a better phrase.

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If you're in a very polluted area, obviously getting to the park or the green

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space where the area is clean, it's quite important to really get that benefit.

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When you're out, you can do a few things.

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Like there's a technique in traditional Qi Gong and Tai Chi and so on.

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I think it's called wu-wei, but it's basically in, in out.

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So you're taking two in breaths and then an out breath.

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So I'll just run through it now.

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So you'll just be like,

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so two through the nose and then one out through the mouth.

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Or you can do all through nose.

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What that does is it just basically as everybody who's ever done Wim Hof

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knows, it starts to create that extra bit of oxygen intensity in the body,

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and there's a lot going on with that.

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One of the things that's happening when you're in a natural space, when you're

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in a park or a space with trees is that those trees and plants, they give

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off these things called phytoncides.

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Phytoncides are the natural airborne chemicals that trees and plants give

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off to protect themselves from insects and from disease, but they also have

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many benefits to humans as well.

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And it's really the foundation of forest bathing research in Japan.

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I won't go into all the benefits, but there are multiple benefits.

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One example would be its positive impacts on blood pressure.

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So there are the phytoncides when you're near the trees.

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If it's been raining or there's any running water or the air is nice and

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damp, as it were, you are getting the benefits of the increased negative ions.

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Again, outdoors, there are a lot more negative ions than

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inside a house or a flat.

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Negative ions, again, I won't go into deep science about it, but it's

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really the sort of supercharged air.

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So effectively we're looking at things like the air molecules and

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the electrons and so on in the air.

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If you were to go to a typical flat that's been with the windows closed,

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you would measure, say a cubic area, cubic sort of meter, and you'd

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find a few hundred negative ions, and these things are good for you.

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They're really vital or vitalising.

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If you were to go to a beach with crashing waves, you would find

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thousands of negative ions per cubic.

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So that's one of the reasons where you come back from a walk.

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Crashing wavy beach and you just feel amazing, that palpable unmistakable

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feeling of wellbeing and exhilaration that you feel that sort of vitality so

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you can get quite a bit of that just from going on a walk after it's rained.

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You could go during the rain, but anytime when you're getting like

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water and the atmosphere together, that's where you're getting the

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extra amounts of these negative ions.

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Yeah, so that's one thing.

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Just taking deeper breaths, maybe just really focusing on that you are

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charging up when you're outdoors.

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You're getting the kind of multiple benefits of really vital,

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energised air, shall we say.

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Number two would be to make that extra little point of focus on nature

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connection, so that might be tuning into one or two or all of your senses

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as you might be pushing a pram or out for a stroll and just noticing.

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We do it all the time, but noticing branches and leaves and birds swooping.

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It could be something simple like the clouds, just the movement of the

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clouds on the shapes that you see, but just that extra connection to nature.

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Creative connection, a sense of timeless connection.

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One of the reasons that we connect so well with nature is that we've grown up with

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it throughout our ancestry and our past.

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So we trust nature, we depend on it, basically, but tuning into the sense.

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It can be the smell, it can be the sound of the breeze and so forth,

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running water, but just paying that extra little bit of attention.

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And then a third tip, really, again, on getting the most out of a walk

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would be just this idea or this reality actually that movement is medicine.

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Movement is one of the most vital things that any human being does for

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their health and wellbeing on a daily.

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You could probably list in excess of a hundred benefits of a, of a walk.

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I'll give you three examples.

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So every cell in your body benefits from movement.

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So the mitochondria in the cells benefits from movement, a little

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bit like a sort of dynamo.

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Every time you go walking, if you're using your feet, obviously on the ground,

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if you are walking physically different, obviously if you are a wheelchair

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user, but if you are walking on your.

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You are stimulating those reflexology points and actually

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points in the soles of the feet.

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So quite a dynamic thing to be happening, but it's not something we

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often focus on when we're on a walk.

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We're just plodding along.

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But actually all that stimulation and impact to the feet, to the soles

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of the feet has multiple impacts and benefits that spread through the body.

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And then the third one just to focus on for a minute, would be

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the synovial fluid, which is the natural lubricant in the joints.

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It's like a kind of egg yolk, and it's there throughout the body in all the

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joints, but it's released and stimulated, and it increases when you move.

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So when you go for a walk, your hips, your knees, your ankles, your arms

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and so on, it's starting to increase that and that can help reduce pain.

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And it's just really described as the body's natural lubricant,

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which is probably an easy way to remember that you're getting a

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benefit from moving rather than being stuck on the sofa, for instance.

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So yeah, not missing that daily walk is probably the best bit of advice, you

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know, just the light that you're getting, the natural light, the air, and so on.

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It's really in.

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I'd probably say it's one of the top things that I would recommend for

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any anybody, particularly new parents who've got those extra channels.

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My one more little bonus tip, this is the one I used to say to everybody years

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ago, which is the gym ball is one of the best ways to help a crying baby.

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You got your crying baby on your.

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Perhaps with your papoose or just holding in your arms.

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If you sit on that gym ball, you can basically create a nice bouncing action,

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but you don't get knee pain and exhaustion that you would eventually after doing

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this for half an hour with a crying baby.

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So you can quite happily do this 10, 20, 30 minutes or even an hour

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and you can kind of move and so on.

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But you are supported, so it's good for you as well as the baby

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will generally stop crying once you've started to bounce in rhythm.

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So yeah, that's my sort of extra tip.

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I think the NHS should give every new parent a gym ball.

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Thank you so much for having me.

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I hope some of this might be useful.