Regular walks and stretching exercises can ease the chronic pain of fibromyalgia, a disease with causes debilitating pain throughout the body, often with sensitivity and stiffness in the joints. Other symptoms include sleep problems, fatigue and depression.
Fibromyalgia strikes over 3 percent of U.S. women and about 0.5 percent of men. No single test can diagnose fibromyalgia, and there is no cure.
A study of more than 200 women diagnosed with fibromyalgia showed that an exercise program that involves progressive walking and flexibility movements, with or without strength, training improves pain management, and also physical functioning and vitality.
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