Hampshire County Council is encouraging residents to build ten minutes of brisk walking into their day, and download the ‘Active 10’ app to support them.
Recent research shows that just 10 minutes a day of brisk walking counts as a form of intense physical activity and can make a huge difference to your health.
Councillor Patricia Stallard, Hampshire County Council’s Executive Member for Public Health, said “Summer is the perfect time of year to spend a little more time outside and be more active, but the busy nature of modern life means that it is often difficult to fit physical activity into our days.
“The ‘Active 10’ app has been designed to help you start briskly walking for 10 minutes and build this into your day. You can download this to help measure your 10 minutes of brisk walking daily and use it to gradually build up to multiple ‘Active 10s’.
“Already, 600,000 people across the country have downloaded the Active10 app and are using it to help improve their fitness.”
Brisk walking is simply walking at a pace that gets your heart pumping faster and makes you feel slightly out of breath. It can make you feel better, more energetic and improve your mood.
Over time, brisk walking can help to lower the risk of serious illnesses like heart disease and type 2 diabetes as well as reducing bone and muscle loss associated with ageing which helps to reduce falling in later life. It also improves mental wellbeing and reduces anxiety.
For Hampshire residents who want to start walking, there are also a number of free, short walks available every week as part of Walking for health. These are led by friendly, specially trained volunteers who are on hand to provide support, and make sure no one gets left behind. Open to everyone, they are especially aimed at those who are least active or who have a long term health condition.
People can download the Active 10 app from the iTunes app store (for iOS), Google Play store (for Android).
People can also find further hints and tips on the One You website: nhs.uk/oneyou
