Vox

Musings, rants, rambling, general nonsense

Just Do It

Posted on | December 18, 2009 | No Comments

From “The Best Walking Partner: Man vs Dog”

To the surprise of the researchers, the dog walkers showed a big improvement in fitness, while the human walkers began making excuses to skip the workout. Walking speed among the dog walkers increased by 28 percent, compared with just a 4 percent increase among the human walkers.

To the surprise of researchers? Nothing surprising there; humans rationalize doing, and not doing, things all the time, particularly things that require effort. Put two humans together and, unless one is already dedicated and set in the positive habit, and you will get double the excuses feeding upon each other.

Dogs don’t consider it, they just do it. Dog walkers may try to rationalize their way out of it, but when you know that critter is counting on you, you just do it, too. (And if you try to tell him you are tired after a long day, he’ll just look at you as if to say, “Yeah, yeah, that’s nice, we can talk about it later – get the leash. C’mon, get the leash”

As far as that bad day at work, consider this:

Ms. Johnson said she suspects differences will show up in other areas, like depression and anxiety, although that data are still under review and the final study has not yet been published.

I have no doubt that positives will show up in those areas. For years, walking has been touted as a sort of meditation. Repetitive physical motion, focused time, rhythm. Add to that the willingness of a dog to share the wag of his tail, and life just seems better.

Since these puppies joined us, I go to bed early, I get up early, and I walk. A lot. In the mornings we all walk together, in the evenings I walk them each individually. That is a lot of walking and my legs/butt/lungs/heart are much better for it.

Especially my heart – I love me some puppies 🙂

 



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Category: animals, fitness

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