Walking 5,000 Steps: Significant Improvement in Quality of Life and Risk of Early Death Avoided, Study Finds

According to researchers, it is not necessary to be a marathon runner to see a significant improvement in our quality of life and to avoid the risk of early death.

We often repeat it in our articles: Physical activity is essential for a healthy life and healthy and being able to maintain lean and lean muscles over time, even when the years pass and we are no longer as young as we once were.

It is not necessary to do intense physical activity – especially if we have not become accustomed to demanding physical efforts at a young age: Even walking is fast enough immediately notice the benefits for body and mind.

In addition to ensuring flexible joints and preventing several chronic diseases (from diabetes to hypertension, from obesity to respiratory diseases), Walking would extend our life expectancy… by at least three years!

This was revealed by a study conducted by London School of Economicswhich studied the behavior and habits of one million people in the UK and South Africa between 2013 and 2023.

Read also: How many steps should you take in a day?

The study

The aim of the research was identify those small habits that can be carried forward for years and which, in the long term, can contribute to improving the quality of our lives and our health.

In fact, our well-being depends on the quality of our habits: healthy habits – such as a healthy diet, regular physical activity, limited consumption of alcohol and sugar – they can greatly improve our lives.

The great thing about practices is that it’s never too late to start: even if until now we have followed a lazy and sedentary lifestyle, nothing stops us from introducing the practice of walking to improve our well-being.

Read also: 21 days is enough to create a new habit (and abandon a bad one for good)

An analysis of the data collected showed that small changes in the way of a healthier lifestyle they had a positive effect across all age groups, but were particularly important for people aged 65 and over.

Those over 65 who have kept up the habit of walking three times a week have seen a 52% reduction in mortality risk due to the onset of chronic pathologies associated with a sedentary lifestyle.

There are people between 45 and 65, however we saw a 38% reduction in mortality riskand the total population saw a decrease of 27%.

But how many steps do you need to take? to extend your life expectancy and ward off chronic diseases such as asthma, diabetes, hypertension, obesity and hypercholesterolemia?

Researchers have no doubt: 5,000 to 7,500 steps per day is enoughthree times a week, to significantly reduce the mortality associated with these pathologies.

Across all age groups, those who maintained their practice of physical activity three times a week for more than two years were able to “add” between 2.5 years (for men) and 3 years (for women) to your life expectancy.

How to introduce a new habit

As well as highlighting how many steps are needed to improve our well-being, the researchers also pointed out three golden rules for starting this new habit.

Start slowly

Driven by the first impulse, we would like to take our 5,000 daily steps immediately – even if we took until yesterday the lift to get down from home!

Motivation, however, is a double-edged sword: it gives us the motivation to start, but it runs out too quickly to allow us to continue the practice for long enough.

So let’s avoid being too expensive, but start with a short daily walk at a slow pace: we will have a much better chance of keeping the habit than those who start with high intensity training.

Set a realistic goal

We set a goal based on our existing practices. For example, if we are inactive people, we start with 2,500 steps three to five times a week to mark the “first step on the ladder” and then increase the activity.

Be consistent

To build a habit that lasts, we have to start it. In the early stages, let’s not focus too much on improving performance or reaching our goal quickly.

Let’s not think about walking, just to get into the habit. At a later time, when we master the new routine (this happens after six / eight weeks), we can increase the intensity.

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Source: Global energy

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