Now I've always been a firm believer in the whole theory of long walks giving you a clear mind, but I've never truly practised this until the past few weeks at university. Coursework and exam season can be an extremely stressful time as you know, meaning that this is a crucial time to clear any unneeded stress from within your mind.

I've been lucky enough to have my accommodation located next to a lovely bit of land called Stoke Park. Since discovering it I've been visiting it nearly every day, for a bit of exercise, a calm stroll, and even just to take some of these beautiful photos. This park is full of open fields, a small lake and beautiful flowered paths through the woodlands, I mean what more could you want? Squirrels, butterflies, dragon flies, and a wide variety of birds? This park is full of them. I've even witnessed a small deer running through those fields right before my eyes.

 But more to the point, these walks. I cannot recommend the idea of taking a stroll to somewhere calm and relaxing enough. It's great for your mental health, giving your brain a chance to relax and just break free from the whirlwind of thoughts that is your mind, even if just for an hour. It can help and improve your self-perception, self-esteem, mood and the quality of sleep that you get. According to WALKING FOR HEALTH you're 30% less likely to suffer with depression if you're up and active, with his also making recovery time a little easier and quicker. By giving your mind the ability to function in a more positive way. But this comes with time, it can be a one off things but most improvements are made over time whether it be working on your weight, creating a positive mind or improving your confidence by stepping outside on your own.

My little experience ramble 

One thing that I've definitely benefited from is the confidence sector, if you knew me this time last year you would know that I was pretty much a completely different person. Unable to start conversations or purposely put myself into situations such as going to the shop and having to talk to an actual server instead of a machine. But since university, my confidence has grown beyond belief. So much that I can now walk out of the house in my exercise clothes knowing that I'm going to be out on a walk for over an hour on my own surrounded by strangers that may or may not be looking at me while I walk past, I mean I still procrastinate leaving the house when I get a little anxious but I always push myself to get out whether it takes me 30 minutes or 3 hours. Moving to a new city has been one of the best decisions I've ever made, I mean forcing myself into a house of 12 people in total is an idea that would scare most people, but it's proven to have pushed me and my confidence to a point that I could never have imagined reaching.

 Now I'm still not at the point of confidence that I would like to be, I still get too shy to talk to my house mates sometimes and still do turn down going to events with certain people. But all this will come with time. I know that for definite. But in the meantime I'm extremely happy with how far I've come, and its still early days but I can already feel myself falling in love with exercise. And I am already upping my walking game to hopefully turn this hobby into running some day. Now enough about my personal experience rambles.

 If you ever have any worries about mental health or even just a little stress and want to incorporate exercise into your daily routine, here's a helpful little snippet of the organisation MIND and why they think that being active matters so much. And now, if you've made it this far then I truly appreciate your patience while reading this and hope that this has possibly given you a little inspiration to get out and go for a walk even just to get a little fresh air. Thank you for reading, until next time. Becky x
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