According to a recent CNN news report, a study has shown that walking can lower your risk of early death—but there’s more to it than just ‘how many steps’ you take.
Look, we’ve long associated walking with a reduction in risk for many different health issues.
In fact, according to science, it’s been shown that you can actually reduce your odds for not only cancer, but also heart disease and other causes of early death by walking every day.
How many steps do you need to take?
Well, that’s the thing.
Researchers have long touted that 10,000 steps per day is really the magic number.
But according to some recent research, it turns out that any amount of walking helps—with benefits increasing as you take additional steps.
Then, the benefits tend to ‘peak’ at the 10,000 step mark, and fade gradually after that.
This may not sound like an incredibly important bit of research. In fact, a lot of people may think:
“This seems pretty intuitive. Didn’t we already know this?”
But the study does help us to understand a few key truths.
Here are some notable takeaways.
1. Exercise Is Good For You
Physical activity, once again, has proven to be an important part of overall health and wellness.
But even more than that—the CNN article contained a quote by Dr. Andrew Freeman, director of cardiovascular prevention and wellness at National Jewish Health in Denver, Colorado, that really helps to hammer the point home.
“Physical activity is just absolutely magnificent… and when/if you blend that with eating a more plant-based diet, de-stressing, sleeping enough and connecting with others – that’s your magic recipe. It’s the fountain of youth, if you will.”
2. Exercise Also Helps To Lower Dementia Risk
According to another study referenced in the CNN article, walking 10,000 steps also lowers your risk for dementia by 50%.
But on top of this, researchers have also found that your risk for suffering from dementia decreases by 25% when you take as few as 3,800 steps per day.
3. The Intensity Of Your Steps Also Matters
One of the more interesting pieces of information from the CNN news article said this:
That if walking occurred at a brisk pace (approximately 122 steps per minute, for 30 minutes per day), it actually maximized risk reduction—leading to a 62% reduction in dementia risk.
The main takeaway here is that the intensity of your steps seems to matter even more than sheer volume.
In other words—walking is good for you. But brisk walking is great for you. And if at all possible, you should try to fit at least a bit of it into your day.
In fact, you don’t even have to do 30 minutes of ‘brisk’ walking all at once. According to studies, it still helps—even if you spread it out over the course of the day.
As it turns out, walking is a pretty miraculous thing—and you don’t even have to be a professional athlete to make it happen.
Just hit the trail and enjoy the scenery, at a semi-brisk pace—and you will do wonders for your overall health and wellness.