Walking is a super drug, in Rome ‘Italy in motion day’

2023-05-15 17:15:26

“A lot of movement, few medicines” because “walking is a super drug”. These are the slogans that the neurologist and writer, Rosario Sorrentino, has chosen for a health ‘challenge’: a day to promote physical activity, starting from the simple walking, for the well-being of body and mind. The ‘Italia in Movimento Day’ initiative, scheduled in Rome on Sunday 21 May at 9 am in the Grande Valle della Caffarella, represents “a concrete act to promote positive biology and prevention with the The goal is to achieve both physical and mental balance and stability”, explains Sorrentino to time.news Salute.

“Personally I don’t recommend, but I do prescribe physical activity to my patients – underlines Sorrentino – because it is a real drug. It acts on dopamine, serotonin, endorphins. It affects a whole chemistry that helps focus on positive thinking. It is a biological stimulus that stimulates cerebral plasticity. And it helps the brain to change its structure, biological configuration. It acts as an antidepressant, as an anxiolytic”. The idea behind Italy in motion day “is to communicate to people that we have an extraordinary drug available against most pathologies: walking for an hour every day allows us to lower cortisol, which is the ‘stress hormone, but also blood pressure and blood sugar, to reduce visceral fat which is a sort of ‘enemy organ’ that we host in our body”.

The movement “is also a preventive drug against neurodegenerative diseases, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s”. The initiative on May 21st will be the first stage, “and it will be repeated two-three times a year in Rome, but it will also arrive in Milan with the aim of kicking laziness and embracing health”, adds Sorrentino. Walking every day, changing lifestyle, “benefits the body, brain and mind. A change of mentality with positive implications on our way of thinking, being and acting. Walking is a concrete act to promote a positive biology and to prevention, with the aim of achieving both physical and mental balance and stability”, concludes Sorrentino.