According to this website
short, 10 minute long walks 4 to 5 times per day may be better for lowing blood pressure than one 40 min walk. Interesting thought, isn’t it?
People who exercise to control blood pressure can do their workouts in small doses.
Indiana University researchers reported in September’s Journal of Hypertension that people in their study who took four 10-minute walks over several hours reduced their blood pressure for 10 to 11 hours, about three hours longer than did those who walked nonstop for 40 minutes.
“Not only can blood pressure be lowered by short bouts of exercise, it can also occur after low-intensity exercise,” says the University of Connecticut’s Linda Pescatello, an exercise physiologist whose own research has also shown that a 15-minute exertion can reduce blood pressure nearly as much as a 30-minute effort.
So, another study that I can’t find on the internet, but have read about in the Oprah magazine, that said that having a dog reduced the incidence of heart attacks in older women, may well be borne out by this research, as well. It tracked older women who had had heart attacks, and the half with dogs had much less incidence of heart attacks than the control group.
Makes getting out on a cold morning for a brisk 10 to 15 minute walk seem that much more sensible, doesn’t it?
