Walking ‘aids sleep’

While going for regular walks may help new mums to lose weight after pregnancy, they are also one of the best cures for insomnia, an expert has claimed.

Professor Jim Horne, the director of the Sleep Research Centre at Loughborough University, explained to the Daily Telegraph that going for a good walk can lead to a sounder night's sleep as it tires out the brain.

"'Brain exercise' leading to deeper sleep comes not so much from crosswords or sudoku but from spending a few hours walking in a changing, interesting environment, looking around and absorbing what is going on," Professor Horne writes.

Earlier in the year, researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston published a study that claimed regular brisk walks are particularly useful in preventing weight gain in pre-menopausal women who are overweight and obese.

The results revealed, however, that slow walking showed no benefit in terms of weight loss to all women, even among those who were overweight and obese.

When was the last time you went for a brisk walk?