Taking steps

Great news!

There’s no need to stress if you are not getting your 10,000 steps a day in. A new study has found that around 4,000 steps a day could be enough to reduce a person's risk of early death.

The study also found that people gain additional health benefits from every extra step they take each day.

The focus has always been on the 10,000 steps that many health trackers suggest, but this was an arbitrary figure dreamed up by a Japanese marketeer in the 1960s and not backed up by science.

The great thing about this new study is that a much more achievable 3,967 steps help a person start to reduce their risk of dying from any cause.

The new study, published in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology, discovered that the number of steps a person needs to walk each day to benefit their health is likely be lower than previously thought.

Academics found that walking at least 2,337 steps a day started to reduce the risk of dying from heart diseases. The more a person walks, the lower the risk of premature death.

This study was the largest of its kind ever. Led by Maciej Banach, Professor of Cardiology at the Medical University of Lodz in Poland, and Adjunct Professor at the Ciccarone Centre for the Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in the US, academics examined 17 different studies with information on almost 227,000 people. On average, people were tracked for seven years.

What I like so much is that it is so much more achieveable for more people. Health goals that are too difficult are such an inhibitor. If they seem too difficult, we are less likely to even try. If we do try and we consistently fail to achieve it, it can further turn us trying to do it.

I run regularly but if I don’t, I rarely hit 10,000 steps a day. When you have a sedentary lifestyle, like an office job, it’s quite difficult to hit it.

As I write this on Wednesday, I’m on less than 2,000 steps, so it would take me a decent run or an hours walk or more to hit 10,000k steps.

Today I’ve been sitting working all day, and that’s the same for me for 5 days of the week, just like many other people.

But I can definitely make it to 4,000 steps later. Perhaps I’ll head into town and see if I can get some ‘free’ money from an ATM.

Bank of Ireland certainly got people up and moving on Tuesday night, although even if they have to pay back money, at least they got some exercise!