As part of my intention to increase my physical wellbeing, I have begun walking everyday if possible. On sick days it might involve a short walk to the end of the street and back, and on rainy days I might give myself the day off (and walk laps of my bedroom), but otherwise, I’ve tried to do it first thing in the morning every morning. I head out as soon as I have gotten up and done my Tai Chi exercises, but before breakfast.
Using a phone-app I set a goal of burning off 500kj as an arbitrary goal. I discovered I have to walk for about 40 minutes to hit that goal. After a few weeks of walking similar tracks through the suburb I knew roughly where to go without having to rely on the app.
(I found that I was worrying too much about streaks and feeling guilty if I didn’t hit the goal – increasing my anxiety was the exact opposite of what I was aiming for).
I recently read an article about a woman who walks much further than me and makes it a way of life, and she nicely summarizes some of the advantages of walking, including that even though it is only a gentle form of cardio it can still boost your mood, wellbeing, metabolism, Vitamin D intake and cardio endurance:
‘I walked 25k steps per day for a year, here’s what happened’ (womenshealthmag.com).
The trick for me has to been to ‘keep going’ – I can’t listen to music via headphones as I walk because it hurts my head, so I often get bored retracing my steps each day. But I tell myself to get to the end of the block, then the next one, then the next one. Before I know it, I’ve done 30-40 minutes of exercise for the day. I’ve begun to recognize some of the people on my walks and we smile and wave as we pass. Best of all, even if I get a migraine later, I feel like I still achieved something that day.
Practicing the notion of ‘keep going’ is a good mantra for a migraineur!
Step by step, you CAN get better.
Take care, Linda x
The Mindful Migraine 
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