Today I attempted to go for an early morning walk. I use the word “attempted” because it wasn’t as early as I aspired for it to be. I am still glad that I went, I was very tempted to not even do it. But I did, and it felt like one of the greatest starts to my day.

I set my alarm for 07:30 A.M. and managed to only start my walk at about 08:10 A.M. Which is not bad, considering the devil on my shoulder was encouraging me to just stay in bed and sleep a little longer. Am I glad I didn’t listen.

The actual purpose of me even wanting to walk was to try and complete 10k steps a day. I did begin going to the gym towards the end of June this year, but lifting weights does not and cannot compare to an early morning nature walk to get a great fresh start to the day. As it so happens, I discovered that walking first thing in the morning is not only beneficial towards my goal of 10k steps, it’s also mentally rejuvenating.

I felt good about myself and my choices and knew that my breakfast afterwards would at least feel “earned” and rewarded rather than simply eating breakfast for the sake of eating breakfast.

The best part of my walk was that I took my Pluto with me which just enhanced the entire vibe of the walk. Since we have a big enough garden, walking my dogs is definitely not necessary or essential, but is nice for them to get out of their comfort space. I have taken Pluto for jogs before when he was younger but it was more difficult to jog than walk since he is just all over the place, nose to the ground, crab walking, stopping without warning.

I loved my morning walk with him and plan to attempt walking in the morning as often as possible. Moving your body first thing in the morning helps to regulate your nervous system and slowly and gently wake your mind up without immediately jumping to thoughts of worries and stress.

My morning walk truly did help me clear and declutter my mind. Because usually when I wake up early, my mind immediately jumps to the tasks I need to get done today, or remembering something negative that happened or something completely unappealing to think of, and it’s not the most wonderful to way to start the day. But incorporating my morning walk really helped me to channel more positive, higher energy thoughts that otherwise only come later on in the day.

Also, despite going to the gym often enough, it cannot replace the generic benefits of simply walking. Benefits of walking include but are not limited to, strengthening your heart and protecting it against heart disease, lowers blood sugar and protects knee and hip joints as well as building bone density to prevent bone loss. These are all facts derived from Google Chrome and can be researched for extra credit.

Walking is also a lovely low-impact exercise that burns a good amount of calories and helps in reducing body fat. I have heard from multiple sources that walking is the number one exercise to assist in targeting weight loss. Overall, walking is a fantastic exercise that is not at all prone to damaging the body or mental state.

Walking this morning was a lovely start to my day especially considering that we are still in the season of winter and I was greeted with a crisp, cool breeze against my skin and slight, cold sweat coating my body that helped my body balance its own temperature.

Pluto will not be the only dog I take on a walk but I am yet to see how good the others will be since it’s been a while I have taken them out their garden on a lead. Pluto was an excellent boy on the walk and motivated me even more to want to walk every morning, and I encourage those who feel lethargic and lazy in the day or demotivated at your work, to actually start your morning with purpose and intention, by simply stretching if not walking, sitting on the grass in the sun with coffee or journaling. These small habits may be cliché but they definitely do work their wonders in lives.