Sincere advice: Walking more than 7,000 steps a day can significantly reduce the mortality rate!

As the saying goes, if you take a hundred steps after a meal, you will live to be ninety-nine. After a busy day, many people have the habit of going out for a walk in the evening. Many people use walking as a form of exercise. For those who don't have time to exercise, walking around in fragmented time is a convenient choice. Don't underestimate this simple and casual habit, it is more beneficial to your health than you can imagine.

01

More than 7,000 steps per day

Reduced risk of all-cause mortality

In September 2021, the research team of Amanda Paluch, assistant professor of kinesiology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, published a study in JAMA Network Open, a subsidiary of the Journal of the American Medical Association: as long as the number of steps per day exceeds 7,000, the risk of all-cause mortality can be reduced. The research team tracked 2,100 middle-aged people for 14 years and found that compared with those who walked less than 7,000 steps a day, those who walked more than 7,000 steps a day had a significantly lower risk of all-cause mortality, with a decrease of about 50% to 70%.

But walking more did not bring any additional benefits; for example, walking more than 10,000 steps a day did not further reduce the risk of death.

In 2019, a survey of elderly women conducted by Harvard Medical School in the United States also reached a similar conclusion. The survey collected the daily steps of 17,000 American elderly women with an average age of 72, and found that when their daily steps were below 7,500, the all-cause mortality rate would decrease as the number of steps increased. However, when their daily steps exceeded 7,500, the all-cause mortality rate would no longer continue to decrease as the number of steps increased.

This shows that as long as our daily steps exceed 7,000 steps, it will bring great benefits to health. And walking 7,000 steps a day is not difficult to achieve. In daily work and life, you can get up and walk around frequently, and take a walk for more than 30 minutes after dinner, and you can reach 7,000 steps.

02

There are many benefits to walking

1. Weight loss

When it comes to the benefits of walking, the first thing that comes to mind for many people is weight loss. Obesity can cause many harms to health. Brisk walking at a speed of 6 kilometers per hour for 30 minutes a day will consume about 150 calories. Even walking at a speed of 4 kilometers per hour for 60 minutes can consume about 130 calories.

If you walk fast enough and your heart rate reaches 60%~70% of your maximum heart rate (maximum heart rate = 220-age), you will get better and more efficient fat burning and weight loss effects.

2. Relieve Arthritis Pain

Walking on flat ground is the least damaging exercise to joints except swimming, and is one of the best ways to exercise for patients with osteoarthritis. Walking helps strengthen bones and muscles, transfer pressure from joints, increase the circulation of joint fluid, and prevent osteoporosis. Friends with arthritis can walk briskly for more than 30 minutes every day, but don't walk too long at a time. If the knee joints feel uncomfortable, they should stop and rest immediately.

3. Prevent fractures

Walking is also a way to train the strength of leg muscles. Persisting in walking every day can significantly enhance the strength of leg muscles, reduce the pressure of leg bones on supporting the whole body, and prevent fractures in middle-aged and elderly people.

4. Promotes Heart Health

Regular walking can exercise your cardiopulmonary function, enhance the heart's ability to pump blood and the lungs' ability to inhale oxygen, and reduce the risk of heart attacks. Especially when you walk briskly often, your cardiopulmonary function will be exercised stronger and stronger. The most direct indicator to measure whether walking has an effect on improving the cardiopulmonary function is whether your heart rate has increased. When walking, you can hold your chest and head high, take as wide a step as possible, swing your arms as much as possible, and let all the muscles in your body participate as much as possible, which can increase your heart rate. At the same time, you can keep your abdominal core muscles tight, which will help stabilize your body trunk and prevent it from swaying left and right, so that you can walk with a breeze.

5. Improves Digestion

If you are taking a walk after a meal, it is recommended to choose a slow walk. Slow walking is a good way to improve digestion and can speed up the passage of food through the stomach and other parts of the body. People with digestive system-related diseases can consider walking slowly for 30 minutes every day after a meal to relieve symptoms.

6. Lowers blood sugar after meals

Controlling blood sugar is a lesson that every diabetic must learn, especially controlling blood sugar levels after meals. After we finish a meal, our blood sugar levels will peak in a short period of time. Taking a walk immediately after a meal can improve blood circulation throughout the body and reduce the peak blood sugar level.

7. Delays brain aging

Walking can improve overall cognitive function, maintain normal thinking ability and memory of the brain, and delay aging. Elderly people who walk more often have larger gray matter volume in the brain and lower risk of cognitive impairment than those who walk less. They react faster and more accurately and perform better in brain cognitive function tests.

Walking at a moderate intensity for 30 minutes a day can protect against neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease.

8. Increased Creativity

In 2014, Marilie Oppezzo, a Ph.D. in educational psychology from Stanford University, and Daniel Schwartz, a professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Education, jointly published a paper titled "Learning, Memory, and Cognition" in the Journal of Experimental Psychology, stating that they organized an experiment with 176 adults and found that the subjects' divergent thinking creativity would increase by an average of 60% while walking and in a short period of time after walking.

9. Relieve anxiety and prevent depression

All exercise releases endorphins, which can reduce stress and make people feel happy. A simple walk can effectively improve mild to moderate anxiety and depression symptoms, and will also enhance one's ability to resist anxiety and depression. More and more studies have found that exercise therapy has a positive effect on depression. Moderate-intensity walking can improve the quality of life of depressed patients, such as improving sleep, improving mental state, making the body more energetic, making emotions change positively, and being more willing to interact with others.

10. Reduces Cancer Risk

Walking is an active lifestyle that can improve endocrine, regulate hormone levels, and reduce the risk of cancer. A French study involving 4 million women showed that women of any age who walk briskly for one hour a day can reduce their risk of breast cancer by 12%. A long-term study of 70,000 people by the Harvard School of Public Health found that walking for one hour a day can reduce the risk of colorectal cancer by 50%. The University of California, USA, conducted a long-term follow-up of 1,455 prostate cancer patients and found that walking briskly for three hours a week can reduce the degree of prostate cancer progression by 57%.

11. Improve sexual function

For male patients with erectile dysfunction, regular walking can promote blood circulation throughout the body, improve mood and enhance sexual excitement.

It is recommended that men take a 30-minute walk every day to maintain normal sexual desire. For women, regular walking can contract the muscles near the pelvic muscles, increase the tension of the perineal muscles, speed up blood flow, make the sense of touch more sensitive, and enhance the pleasure of sex.

03

Office workers can use their spare time to walk

1. On the way to work

If office workers do not have a large block of time for walking, they can also use their fragmented time to walk more. For example, create more opportunities for walking on the way to and from work. If the journey is within 2 kilometers and you are not in a hurry, it is recommended that you just walk there. You can also try to get off the bus one or two stops earlier every day and walk to your destination.

2. Noon

Office workers can choose not to order takeout at lunch, but to go out of the office and eat at a restaurant outside. After lunch, they can walk back to the office, or if time permits, they can take a walk around the office after lunch.

3. Inside the office

Office workers are busy during the day and often sit for long periods of time. It is recommended that you stand up and shake your hands, feet, shoulders, and neck every 30 minutes. Stand up and walk around every hour, drink a glass of water, go to the toilet, walk to the window and look out, and chat with other colleagues about work. Just take advantage of your spare time to walk more and you can complete your daily steps.

No matter how much you talk about the benefits of walking, it is not as good as you actually develop a good habit of walking. This simple and easy exercise with many benefits, I believe you will find no reason to refuse.

References:

[1] Amanda E. Paluch. et al, Steps per Day and All-Cause Mortality in Middle-aged Adults in the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults Study, JAMA Network Open, September 3.2021

Author｜Zeng Xinyue Popular Science Creator

Review｜Ma Yong, Professor of Wuhan Institute of Physical Education