Which is what the app on my phone is based on already. I manage it most days easily by walking from the bus station to work and back, which is ~1 mile. And that doesn't include the time I'm actually at work, because I can't wear my smart watch actually in the office.
Or 7,000, or 6,000-8,000. If we’re going to nitpick there’s a lot of numbers tossed out in the article, but then somebody who reads it doesn’t really need to be saved a click.
the optimal number is probably closer to 6,000 steps per day, depending on your age.
In 2021, Paluch and her team published research based on a cohort of more than 2,000 middle-aged individuals living across the US. They found taking at least 7,000 steps a day reduced chances of premature death by 50 to 70 percent.
For adults aged 60 and older, this reduced risk topped out at around 6,000 to 8,000 steps a day. Pushing further might have other benefits, but a reduced chance of death isn’t one.
The study found that those who are younger could do well to walk a little more, but there wasn’t evidence that they’d necessarily live longer by walking more than 8,000 to 10,000 steps a day.
But if nothing else, setting our sights on at least 6,000 to 8,000 paces before bedtime could be a far easier step towards a longer life.
I don't understand why they use steps. Who counts steps? It is more individualized than a distance, but my gosh, who is out there saying 4,981, 4,982, ...? I know roughly the distance of my pace and could convert.
It really sounds like we need folks to get out and do it, tho!
It’s really funny (in a good way!) that you somehow missed the whole step counter thing and thought people are manually counting steps, haha. But yeah, as others have mentioned phones can act like pedometers, and this is also one of the main features people use on Apple Watches and fitbits and stuff (along with the heart rate sensor on those devices). It’s kind of useful to just get a sense of how active you are throughout the day, and having a step goal can be a nice little motivator to get out of the house sometimes.
Part of what was confusing for me was that there was this person, Bob Marshall, who was known for counting a lot of things while out hiking, and then logging the data. Something like "at 458 paces I came across a stream in which there were four large boulders and a log jam just upstream of the crossing consisting of five logs and 17 branches. At 1,209 paces I saw a Robin's nest with three eggs..." He was almost certainly on a spectrum but he died nearly 100 years ago.
Anyway, looked at some apps, I hike for work in season and would like to match that now. These programs seem ideal for that since I am limited to the streets mostly rn.
In this meta-analysis of 15 studies, seven published and eight unpublished, we found that taking more steps per day was associated with progressively lower mortality risk, with the risk plateauing for older adults (aged ≥60 years) at approximately 6000–8000 steps per day and for younger adults (aged <60 years) at approximately 8000–10 000 steps per day. We found inconsistent evidence that step intensity had an association with mortality beyond total volume of steps.
It honestly isn’t as hard as it sounds. I started taking walks over traditional exercise years ago and it’s done wonders for my physical and mental health.
Listen to your favorite podcast and just walk down the block and back. Keep it short.
The most important thing is consistency. After you do this for a while, you’ll naturally find yourself wanting longer walks, different routes.
But the key is consistency so better to start with something short but do it everyday.
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