A Daily Dose of Walking: It's Good Medicine

Some tips to help you improve your vascular health through exercise

1. March to a different drummer. Invest in a small portable tape or CD player and headphones and listen to your favorite music as you walk. It's easier to forget the aches and pains if you have a pleasant distraction.
   
   
2. Speaking of marching, when your calf muscle starts to hurt when you are walking, start marching instead of walking. It rests the calf muscle a bit more than walking yet keeps you exercising. When the calf muscle has recovered, start walking again.
   
   
3. Book 'em, Dano! Once you have the tape player, how about listening to books on tape? Nothing like looking forward to the next chapter of a suspenseful mystery to get you out walking. No fair cheating! Only allow yourself to listen when you are out walking

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 of Vascular Ultrasound.