How Many Daily Steps for Mental Health Do You Really Need?

Summary: 10,000 daily steps for mental health or physical health is considered the benchmark, but new research shows that fewer steps can lead to the same health benefits.

Key Points:

• The 10,000-step benchmark is not evidence-based but originated with a Japanese fitness company marketing the first commercial pedometer in 1965.
• Counting daily steps for physical health made a comeback in 2009, with the appearance of a new, digital step counter, the Fitbit, which set 10,000 steps as a default daily goal.
• People soon began counting daily steps for mental health as well as physical health.
• New research from Japan may make us rethink how many daily steps we really need to promote optimal mental and physical health.

Walking is Good Medicine: Get Your Daily Steps for Mental and Physical Health

10,000 steps a day sounds like a great goal, and most of us have heard that number so often we assume it’s based on exercise science, but it’s not. The number comes from a marketing campaign created to sell the first commercial step counter.

Nevertheless, the number caught on, and now people around the U.S. and world work hard to get their 10,000 steps in every day. We don’t want to discourage anyone from healthy habits, but the results of a new, large-scale study may mean we need to recalibrate our idea of how many steps a day we need – and it may be less than 10,000.

Before we continue, we should say that if you walk 10,000 steps a day and it works for you, don’t stop – but if you fall short a couple of days, don’t worry: you probably got plenty of steps in.

Previous research shows daily walking is associated with the following benefits:

• Decreased all-cause mortality
• Reduced likelihood of cardiovascular disease
• Reduced incidence of type-2 diabetes
• Improved mood
• Increased energy
• Improved concentration
• Reduced depressive symptoms.

The current dogma is that we need around 10,000 steps per day to accrue these benefits. Let’s dive into the topic and learn what the latest research says.

New Study in Japan Measures Daily Steps for Mental Health, Physical Health

In the meta-analysis “Daily Steps and Health Outcomes in Adults: A Systematic Review and Dose-Response Meta-Analysis,” a group of researchers in Japan designed a retrospective study they describe as follows:

“Despite the rapid increase in evidence from the past decade on daily steps and health-related outcomes, existing systematic reviews primarily focused on few outcomes, such as all-cause mortality. This study synthesized the prospective dose-response relationship between daily steps and [various] health outcomes.”

To determine the relationship between daily steps and health benefits, i.e. the dose-response relationship, the researchers analyzed data on over 160,000 adults from 81 studies conducted between 2004 and 2025.

The team analyzed the following outcomes:

1. All-cause mortality
2. Cardiovascular disease incidence and mortality
3. Cancer incidence and mortality
4. Type 2 diabetes
5. Dementia
6. Depression
7. Falls

Here’s the top-line outcome:

“For all-cause mortality, cardiovascular disease incidence, dementia, and falls, an inverse non-linear dose-response association was found, with inflection points at around 5000–7000 steps per day.”

What inverse non-linear means is that as daily steps increased, the outcomes decreased, but they were not predictable. In this case, the outcomes were all-cause mortality, cardiovascular disease incidence, dementia, and falls. Each outcome decreased as steps increased, with most benefits appearing when people took between 5,000 and 7,000 steps per day.

In addition, the research team reported:

“An inverse linear association was found for cardiovascular disease mortality, cancer incidence, cancer mortality, type 2 diabetes incidence, and depressive symptoms.”

Health experts consider 2,000 steps the cutoff point for being classified as sedentary. In this study, taking 7000 steps per day – compared with taking 2,000 steps a day – was associated with the following health outcomes:

• All-cause mortality: 47% decreased risk
• Cardiovascular disease incidence: 25% decreased risk
• Cardiovascular disease mortality: 47% decreased risk
• Cancer: 6% decreased risk
• Cancer mortality: 37% decreased risk
• Type 2 diabetes: 14% decreased risk
• Dementia: 38% decreased risk
• Depression: 22% decreased risk
• Falls: 28% decreased risk

We’ll discuss these results below.

A New Benchmark for Daily Steps for Mental Health and Physical Health?

That’s the primary takeaway from this research. The old number, 10,000 – which wasn’t evidence based anyway – may now be replaced by a new number: 7,000.

And that’s not all.

A separate study that compared younger adults with adults aged 60 or older showed that to decrease all-cause mortality risk:

• Younger adults need around 8,000-10,000 steps per day
• Older adults need around 6,000-8,000 steps per day

When we compare that with recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) – 150 minutes of moderate aerobic activity and 75 minutes of vigorous activity per week – we can see that walking around 7,000 steps a day, which would take about an hour and fifteen minutes if done all at once, meets and exceeds the threshold for moderate aerobic activity.

Add two, thirty-minute sessions of vigorous activity per week to your daily 7,000 steps and you meet CDC criteria for experiencing the essential benefits of exercise.

A lead researcher on the new study from Japan, interviewed by National Public Radio (NPR), offered the following insight:

“It definitely doesn’t do harm if you go beyond 7,000. For anyone who’s already doing 10,000 and more, there is no point of going back, but for the folks who are finding it harder to get there, 7,000 could be a really realistic target.”

And Dr. William Kraus, one of the scientists who helped the CDC design their exercise guidelines, concurs:

“What you’re seeing is the more energy expenditure that you consume with physical activity, the greater benefit you get. Anything is better than nothing — more is better than less.”

That last sentence is the best possible advice for anyone who’s currently sedentary and wants to make a change. The best way to start is one step at a time, and it’s okay to start small.

How to Get Your Daily Steps for Mental Health and Physical Health

If you don’t have a Fibit, a pedometer, and don’t want to use your phone for counting steps, then here’s a key to help you get the steps you need:

• One mile walking = about 2,250 steps. Walking is an excellent activity that anyone, at any age, barring physical issues – i.e. with legs, hips, back, feet – can do every day.
• One mile walking = 1/5^th of a mile swimming, or about 30 laps. Swimming is great for people with joint problems in their lower body or spine who need an activity without weight bearing or impact.
• One mile walking: 5 miles cycling, or about 40 minutes, depending on terrain. Cycling is great for people who need to avoid any impact on their feet, knees, or hips.

Based on that information, walking for about an hour a day will get you the 7,000 steps you need to accrue the health benefits identified in the new research from Japan. You don’t have to do it all at once: half an hour in the morning and half an hour in the evening work perfectly. Or you can divide it up any way you like, and mix it up with other activities you enjoy.

However, there’s one disclaimer. If you have a sedentary job or lifestyle, you may need to set your sights higher. Dr. Kraus, who we quote above, describes the impact of overall lifestyle on the number of daily steps needed for physical and mental health benefits:

“People who work office jobs, or work at home and sit all day, or people who are sedentary for at least 8 hours a day need about 13,000 steps per day to counter the negative health impact of time spent sitting.”

If you’re somewhat active during the day, and regularly move around for various reasons, that doesn’t apply to you. However, if your job or life demands that you must sit for 8 hours a day, research says you may need to take those extra steps to counter the effects of the hours sitting down.

Daily Steps and Mental Health: We Have the Technology

The idea that exercise and mental health are connected is not new. Nor is the idea that walking is an excellent form of exercise. What’s new is the research around the connection between exercise and mental health, the research on the relationship between daily steps and physical and mental health, and, perhaps most importantly, our ability to track and view trends in our daily steps.

It’s true that personal pedometers have been available since the 1960s, but now we have phones and wearable devices that can not only track and count our steps but also show us charts and tables displaying our steps over days, weeks, months, and years.

Our new technology makes tracking our activity easy. It will tell us when to start, encourage us along the way, and tell us when we’ve met our goals. Now what we need to do is what we’ve always needed to do: find our why, and get walking – or swimming, or cycling, or whatever it is that works for you.

And about those 10,000 steps?

The research we discussed today indicates you might not need to take that many. Based on the data they collected and subsequent statistical analysis, the research team arrived at the following conclusion:

“Although 10,000 steps per day can still be a viable target for those who are more active, 7000 steps per day is associated with clinically meaningful improvements in health outcomes and might be a more realistic and achievable target for some.”

That’s a little over an hour of walking per day – and we bet you can do that.