A Daily Dose of Walking: It's Good Medicine

Some tips to help you improve your vascular health through exercise.

1. Be your own competition. For all those who just have to compete, compete only against yourself. Try to better YOUR previous walking record.
   
   
2. A friend in need (of a walk) is a friend indeed. Research shows that having a companion who will walk with you helps you stick to a regular walking program. Find someone who will match your level of walking and won't mind slowing down or stopping if you need a breather. And chose someone who will try to talk you into walking on those days when you call to say you don't want to!
   
   
3. Fall off the wagon? So you got out of the walking habit. It's just a relapse into your old behavior and it doesn't have to be permanent. You can start again. Just slap on those walkin' shoes and put one foot in front of the other. Soon you'll be back in the groove.

Author, Mitzi Ekers, MS, ARNP, is a nurse practitioner who has been working with vascular patients for more than 30 years. She is Director of Vascular Services at the Heart and Vascular Institute of Florida in St. Petersburg. She helped start both the Society for Vascular Nursing and the Society for Vascular Ultrasound.