The Myth of 10,000 Steps

Walking, and more of it, is great for health, but let’s be reasonable, science says

Back in 1965, a Japanese company called Yamasa Tokei introduced what’s said to have been the first commercial pedometer. The device was called Manpo-kei, which translates to “10,000-step meter.” Over time, the number stuck as a supposedly important minimum daily step goal, even being programmed — annoyingly, in my experience — into modern fitness tracking apps.

But 10,000 steps is a mythical threshold, with no basis in science.

“10,000 steps is kind of arbitrary,” says Daniel Lieberman, PhD, an evolutionary biologist and paleoanthropologist at Harvard University. “It’s a perfectly reasonable goal to shoot for, but there’s nothing, like, special about it,” says Lieberman, who has debunked many exercise myths. “The important thing is to be physically active, because some is better than none, and a little bit more tends to be better than that.”

Indeed, the health benefits of walking — which are profound —level off before 10,000 steps, for adults of all ages. That’s not to suggest you shouldn’t walk that much or more, if you’re so inclined. One compelling reason to walk and walk and walk: Simply being outside, for as many hours as you can each day, is great for setting your body clock to help you sleep better.

Live longer and healthier

Older adults who walk anywhere from 6,000 to 9,000 steps per day — regardless of their pace — have a 40% to 50% lower risk of heart attacks, strokes or other cardiovascular events, according to a new review of eight studies on the topic.

“We found for adults over 60, there was a strikingly lower risk of a cardiovascular event or disease over an average follow-up of six years,” said Amanda Paluch, PhD, an assistant professor of kinesiology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. “When accumulating more steps per day, there was a progressively lower risk.”

Paluch, like other scientists who study the benefits of walking, calls the goal of 10,000 steps unscientific. But her research does confirm that more is better, to a point.

“The people who are the least active have the most to gain,” she said in a statement. “For those who are at 2,000 or 3,000 steps a day, doing a little bit more can mean a lot for their heart health. If you’re at 6,000 steps, getting to 7,000 and then to 8,000 also is beneficial, it’s just a smaller, incremental improvement.”

The analysis, published this week in the journal Circulation, adds to a significant body of research revealing the health benefits of simply walking, whether you are young or old or in between.

Earlier this year, Paluch and colleagues analyzed 15 other studies — a research approach called meta-analysis — to conclude that walking between 6,000 and 8,000 steps daily lowered the risk of death from all causes in older adults, but the benefits leveled off thereafter. For adults younger than 60, the benefits leveled off somewhere between 8,000 and 10,000 steps.

It all adds up

At a typical moderate walking pace, 6,000 steps would take the average woman on a 2.5-mile walk, while the average man would cover about 2.8 miles. A modest pace is considered to be around 2 mph, while 2.5 to 4 mph is considered brisk walking.

Whatever step count you aim for, you don’t have to achieve it all in one go. There’s ample evidence that all your steps during the day — in fact all physical activity of any sort—adds up beneficially, even if done in brief spurts.

Other evidence suggests walking faster can save you some time, offering the same benefits as taking a given number of steps at a slower pace. Walking at an average pace, around 2 to 3 mph, was linked to a 27% lower risk of heart failure compared to walking more slowly, one study of women ages 50 to 79 concluded earlier this year. The findings would likely apply to men, too, study leader Charles Eaton, MD, a Brown University epidemiologist and a practicing family physician, told me.

“Given that limited time for exercise is frequently given as a barrier to regular physical activity, walking faster but for less time might provide similar health benefits as the recommended 150 minutes per week of moderate physical activity,” Eaton advised.

But if you’re a slowpoke, don’t despair. Just get the steps in — even if that means it takes a long while. Paluch’s new study didn’t find any strong evidence that pace, by itself, made much difference.

“We’re interpreting these results with caution, but we did not find any striking association with walking intensity,” she said. “There was no additional benefit with how fast you’re walking, beyond the total number of steps that you accumulated.”

I’m the author of Make Sleep Your Superpower: A Guide to Greater Health, Happiness & Productivity (paperback or Kindle version). Your support makes my health writing possible. You can sign up for emails when I publish on Medium, or join Medium to directly support me and gain full access to all Medium stories. — Rob