The Best Exercise for Longer Life

See where your feet can take you!

You’ve heard it before, “10,000 steps a day!” is the daily walking goal.  It sounds easy to simply walk more, but for many (about half of us in the U.S.) that goal is way out of reach.  Despite having ties to better mood, reduced stress, even improved eating habits and less risk for developing chronic diseases, the fact is that many Americans lead a sedentary lifestyle making 10,000 steps a day almost impossible without dedicated walking time. 

A recent study published in The Journal of the American Medical Association looked at how walking during younger adulthood could impact participants later down the road.  The study consisted of over 2,000 men and women between 18-30 years old who participated in tracking and were evaluated 20 years later. 

Turns out 7,000 steps/day was the sweet spot that lowered risk of dying between 50-70%!  Benefits continued to increase up to 10,000 steps where they leveled off.  As far as intensity, they also found that walking faster did not influence risk of dying, driving the point home that any movement is better than no movement. 

Don’t have a pedometer?  Another study categorized participants according to their sedentary leisure time:  4hrs or less, 4-6hrs or 8hrs or more.  They found that participants in the 8hrs or more group had higher incidents of stroke.  Which group would you fall into? 

The bottom line is to move more than you did yesterday while working up to the big TEN thousand!  If you are hovering at 5,000 steps a day, aim to get to 6,000 over the next few weeks and go from there.  If you can’t schedule time for a morning walk, think about how to incorporate more walking into your current routine.  Can you take the stairs more frequently?  Could you skip the moving walkway at the airport?  Park a bit farther from the store entrance? Or maybe you could recruit friends to join you to take coffee time to the sidewalk!  Entice them with our Dalgona Coffee and Crumble Coffee Cake Squares before or afterwards!   

Happy Walking!