Keeping that fitness promise we made to ourselves is hard.

In other words, right now you are choosing to do a hard thing.

Welcome to Walking is Fitness.

This is a podcast of action providing a little extra motivation to keep that fitness promise you made to yourself.

Hi, I'm Dave. I've been walking for fitness since 2013, averaging just about 21,000 steps a day.

Not my goal, but now it's really a reflection of just how much I love walking.

And that's what I'm doing right now. And would love to have you join me for the next 10 minutes or so.

It was one of my favorite parts of this time of year.

The re-emergence of birds, or at least happy birds.

And walking out my front door and being serenaded by a growing chorus of birds is really nice.

It is a cool-ish day here in South Carolina.

Temperature in the low 50s, a little breezy.

So that's what I am walking with today. I hope it's nice where you are. I got a question for you.

How's your sleep? By the way, before we dive into this, I need to say that I'm not a doctor.

What we're going to be talking about should not be construed as medical advice. I'm simply a guy who loves to walk and knows his way around Google.

So sleep. It is one of the pillars of health and wellness.

The better you sleep, the better you feel, and the healthier you are.

Conversely, if you have a hard time sleeping, you're not going to feel great, and it is going to have an impact on your health.

In fact, there are some new studies out, I think within the last couple of years, linking

sleep to dementia, particularly Alzheimer's.

And the studies are showing that a lack of sleep, particularly in middle age, increases your risk of getting dementia.

And what they're discovering is really kind of fascinating. The focus is on the deep sleep stage, and when our bodies are in

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