Humans were built to walk. We get so many health benefits from moving our bodies and yet here we are sitting at a desk for most of our long lives. I work out a ton, usually for a couple hours, and then I go sit for 8 hours. Not great.
So……
–-Walk more—try more than once a day.Walk everywhere.
–Get up and move throughout the day. Walk around your house, your building, your office. Take frequent breaks from sitting at your desk.
Based on the research presented below, walking could add up to 15 years to your life…..WOW.
The Fantastic Life Rule # 10
Take the Decision Out of the Moment
These days, it’s easy not to walk. It’s easy to drive or arrange our lives so everything is right within reach. But when you start looking, you’ll find numerous opportunities to get moving. Walk to get coffee instead of choosing the drive-thru. Walk your neighborhood after dinner instead of going straight to the TV. Look for the oppotunities, and you’ll find them.
New study finds walking may add 15 years to your life – Dr Ellie’s top tips for walking
By Adam Chapman | Published on March 31, 2022
Walking tips: Walking uphill and in nature can enhance the benefits (Image: Getty Images)
LONGEVITY seekers delight: a new study suggests walking can add more than a decade to your life expectancy. Speaking on ITV’s This Morning, Doctor Ellie lists the benefits of walking and the best way to do it. around — or simply confused about where to begin.
Walking is a peaceful pastime but it also unlocks numerous health benefits. A new study adds to a growing body of evidence linking walking to a longer life expectancy. The key takeaway from the study, to be published in Communication Biology, is that regular walking may add up to 15 years to your life expectancy.
Getting the steps in provides “so many health benefits”, said Doctor Ellie on This Morning.
Studies have shown walking is good for age-related memory loss, she said.
It’s also great for post-menopausal women and keeping your bones and muscles strong, the doc said.
How many steps must you do to see results?
Doctor Ellie was wary about specifying the number of steps because doing so seems “quite arbitrary”.
However, passing 6,000 steps seems to be a “good benchmark”, she said.
The optimal way to walk
Walking is great regardless of how you do it but there are some optimal approaches.
Carrying something is of particular benefit because it “adds weight”, said Doctor Ellie.
Walking uphill and walking faster – speeding up with a few minutes – can also enhance the benefits.
According to Doctor Ellie, walking with friends and in nature also provides added benefit.
What the latest study found out
Thomas Yates, a professor in physical activity, sedentary behaviour and health, from the University of Leicester, England, investigated the health benefits of a daily walk.
In research to be published in Communication Biology, he found that people who adopted a quick pace can have a biological age 15 years younger than those who take their time on their daily outing.
Prof Yates and his team at the National Institute for Health Research Leicester Biomedical Research Centre looked at the length of telomeres – the protective structures at the end of chromosomes – in 405,981 middle-aged adults in the UK.
What they found was that brisk walking helped to preserve telomere length.
The study comes on the heels of a meta-analysis of 15 studies involving nearly 50,000 people.
The study, spanning four continents, offers new insights into the amount of daily walking steps that will optimally improve adults’ health and longevity- and whether the number of steps is different for people of different ages.
Led by University of Massachusetts Amherst physical activity epidemiologist Amanda Paluch, an international group of scientists who formed the Steps for Health Collaborative found that taking more steps a day helps lower the risk of premature death. The findings are reported in a paper published March 2 in Lancet Public Health.
More specifically, for adults 60 and older, the risk of premature death leveled off at about 6,000-8,000 steps per day, meaning that more steps than that provided no additional benefit for longevity.
Adults younger than 60 saw the risk of premature death stabilise at about 8,000-10,000 steps per day.
Interestingly, the research found no definitive association with walking speed, beyond the total number of steps per day.
Getting in your steps – regardless of the pace at which you walked them – was the link to a lower risk of death.