Put some pep in your step with the WIA Bingo Card

• Walking is a great way to brighten up your day and improve your mental health.

• The key to creating a walking habit is to find ways to enjoy the process.
• The Walking is Awesome bingo card includes a variety of different tasks to help you make the most of your walks.
• Some of the tasks on the bingo card are designed to help you overcome anxiety and feel safer walking by yourself.
• The bingo card is a great way to track your progress and make walking a more fun and rewarding experience.

Hi. If you are looking for a way to, you know, brighten up your walks, put some pet back in your step, change it up a little. This episode is for you. In this episode, I bring to you the walking is awesome bingo card.

I wanted to take the opportunity to talk about why I've included some of them, because, you know, I'm not a fitness expert, not a physical fitness expert. I'm a psychologist and we are experts in mental health, and fitness, and these are some of the things that make doing this bingo card a little bit different.

There are elements of counting steps of looking at time, but also some things that you might go, why would I be doing that?

And I'm gonna tell you why.

Because the key components of walking and creating a habit have to do with enjoying the process, right?

So many people will say, oh, I know I should walk, or, I haven't got time for walk or walking is so boring and I get it.

You know, life can be super chaotic and it takes time to walk, or the difference between going for a five K run and going for a five K walk is quite significant.

Mind you, the last time I went for a five K run, it probably took me about as long as a 5K walk. I'm not a natural runner, so I stick to walking, but it's like I have to walk for like an hour a day. I mean, I haven't got an hour in the day, you know, I don't wanna walk for an hour in the day.

It's boring. So we break it up. I don't walk an hour at a time. I think I walk roughly an hour all up, but it's spaced, right? You don't have to do it all at once.

The things that I have in this bingo card are bite-sized.

There are 25 different things, and you can choose to do a square a day.

You might do a couple of squares on a day over different walks. There might be some gaps in between gaps, whichever. There's no timeline for this. So the first one, walk 4,000 steps.

4,000 tends to be around half an hour, depending on how quickly you walk. It might take a bit longer, it might take you less time. For me, my morning walk is roughly 4,000 steps, and then I'll do some more later.

Walking alone is the next one on the card.

Walking by yourself can be a significant anxiety hurdle to overcome.

You may feel less safe walking by yourself.

Now, I don't put a time limit or a step limit around this.

Whatever you can do if you haven't walked by yourself before and it's a big obstacle, just walk to the letterbox, walk around the block, walk somewhere that feels quite safe for you to walk.

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A Creating Connection Podcast by Kim Ross, Psychologist.

Positive Young Minds

Download your free Walking is Awesome Bingo Card

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Thank you.  And until next time, take care of yourself. Kim xx

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Kim Ross, Psychologist and Founder of Positive Young Minds

⁠www.positiveyoungminds.com.au⁠