Walking 8000 steps for even one or two days a week can help lower Cardiovascular Mortality by 15 per cent. Here’s how you can get more steps a day.
Walking is considered one of the best cardio workouts and one of the easiest ways to prevent cardiovascular disease. The simple activity of walking offers numerous health benefits, from strengthening your bones to improving your balance and helping in the management of hypertension, high cholesterol, diabetes and other chronic conditions. But the question is: How many steps people should walk daily? 10,000 steps a day or 8000 steps a day?
“It may be intimidating to walk 10,000 steps every day for a person who has never exercised. 8,000 steps twice a week can be a less intimidating and more achievable goal. And, of course, we can build up from there,” says Dr Kaushal Chhatrapati, MD DM, FACC FSCAI FESC, Interventional Cardiologist.
Walking 10,000 steps a day is not achievable for most people
According to Dr Chhatrapati, the concept of walking 10,000 steps a day started as a Marketing gimmick by a Japanese corporation.
“Walking is one of the safest exercises possible. Almost everyone can start walking. It needs a very basic level of fitness. That walking is beneficial is also very obvious. Any exercise is helpful for improving, especially one that is low risk and free. However, 10,000 steps, the originally proposed target, is very steep for most people who are out of shape and who have hardly ever exercised. Hence, newer studies are examining if lower step counts will actually have a similar Cardiovascular benefit in patients,” he adds.
Walking 8000 steps one or two days a week is a good start
The University of California (USA) and University of Kyoto (Japan) undertook a study to find out if walking less than 10,000 steps a day can also offer Cardiovascular benefits.
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Talking about the study results, Dr Chhatrapati says, “The researchers found that those patients who walked 8000 steps for even one or two days a week had a 15 per cent lower Cardiovascular Mortality. Those who walked 8000 steps for 3 or more days had a 16.5 per cent lower Cardiovascular Mortality. This Mortality continued to decrease as the number of “active” days increased.”
“This has great implications in patient treatment. “Something is better than nothing”. It may be intimidating to walk 10,000 steps every day for a person who has never exercised. 8,000 steps twice a week can be a less intimidating and more achievable goal. And, of course, we can build up from there,” he adds.
Tips to get more steps a day
Dr Chhatrapati shares some tips on how you can accommodate the required 8000 steps in your busy schedule:
- Do not order stuff online? Go to physical stores for grocery shopping.
- Park a short distance away from your workplace. That way you can sneak in some steps whilst going to and coming to work.
- Pair walks are an enjoyable activity. Listen to your favourite music or an audio book.
- Buy a smart watch. This monitors you and nudges you in the direction of completing your steps.
- Walk when you are waiting for someone. Don’t stand still.
- Be a pet parent. Dog owners have a 30 per cent lower cardiovascular mortality than non-owners, because of amongst other things mandatory daily walks with the dog.
- Exercise with company. Peer pressure and group motivation is one of the most important markers of sustainability of my exercise programme.
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