Time To Get Moving: 10-Minute Brisk Walking

Public Health England (PHE) in partnership with the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) are encouraging people across the UK to include 10 minutes of brisk walking into their routine. This movement is called ‘Active 10’. This is designed to help around three million physically inactive middle-aged adults to start exercising and practice a more healthy lifestyle. People who are classified as “physically inactive” means that they perform less than 30 minutes of physical activity per week. According to recommendations by The UK Chief Medical Officers’,  adults should do at least 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity per week.

Professor Helen Stokes-Lampard, chair of the Royal College of GPs states that while doctors encourage patients to make lifestyle changes that could potentially benefit their health and wellbeing “the responsibility cannot solely lie with healthcare professionals, and patients must also play their part”.

Health leaders now want people to focus not only on the number of steps that they take but the speed of their steps as well. The reason for this – moderate intensity physical activity gets your heart rate and make you breathe faster. Slowly walking cannot accomplish that.

A survey conducted by PHE’s found that nearly 9 in 10 of adults (87%) say they walk more than 10 minutes per day but only over half (54%) state they walk briskly for this amount of time. Also the survey revealed that lack of time is a major contributor to inactivity. Around one third (31%) state that this was the main reason they didn’t exercise. Other reasons for not exercising are not feeling motivated (27%) and being too tired (25%).