“Walking affects multiple systems in the body, and so it offers a lot of great benefits,” says James N. Robinson, MD, a sports medicine physician at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York City. Despite being low-impact, walking is considered a moderately intense aerobic activity — if you do it at a pace at which you can still talk but singing would be difficult — meaning it works your cardiovascular system. When walking, Dr. Robinson suggests folks go at a pace that gets their heart rate up a bit. You should be a little breathless but not completely out of breath; use the “talk test” described above. “That’s a good monitor that the walking you’re doing will improve your cardiovascular fitness,” he says. Aim for 150 minutes of this type of walking per week, spanning multiple days (not all at the same time), says Robinson. That’s in line with the Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans (PDF) from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which recommends 150 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic exercise per week for adults (or about 30 minutes, five days a week). It’s also okay to break it up into even smaller chunks throughout the day, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). For example, you might do three 10-minute walks during the day. In addition to being an aerobic exercise, walking strengthens the muscles in your legs, as well as your core, which has the job of holding you upright as you step, says Robinson. As great a full-body workout as walking is, it’s still important to take rest days. He recommends doing intense walking workouts no more than five days per week, to reduce the risk of injury. However, rest days don’t mean being entirely sedentary. It’s okay to do light- or moderate-intensity walking every day, since getting steps in on a daily basis is beneficial to your health. (More on that below.) Here are other ways that walking can buoy your health from head to toe:
1. Walking May Lengthen Your Life
Walking can take you well into your golden years. In a study of more than 2,000 adults, those who hoofed it for least 7,000 steps per day had a 50 to 70 percent lower risk of dying (from any cause) by the end of the 11-year study period, compared with those who took fewer steps, according to research published in JAMA Network Open in 2021. The researchers controlled for several behavioral and lifestyle factors, including age, smoking history, body weight, alcohol intake, and diet, as well as health markers like cholesterol levels, fasting glucose, blood pressure, some medication usage, and more. “Being active benefits nearly all parts of the body, such as the brain, muscles, bones, cardiovascular system, kidneys, and lungs,” says Amanda Paluch, PhD, the study’s author and a physical activity epidemiologist and kinesiologist at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. And walking is a great way to get that activity in, she says. “Walking more can help prevent many chronic conditions that lead to early deaths. There is no single drug that does what physical activity, such as walking, can do.”
2. Walking Can Boost Bone Strength
Walking is a weight-bearing exercise (meaning you perform it upright with your bones supporting your weight, per Mayo Clinic), so it may help preserve bone health and potentially decrease osteoporosis risk, says Robinson. (What’s more, walking also improves core strength, increasing stabilization and balance to help prevent falls as you age, he says.) Most notably, walking can improve bone strength in your legs and spine, per the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, which recommends starting with a 10-minute brisk walk three times per day. For the biggest benefits to your bones, Robinson advises combining walking with a strength-training program.
3. Walking Gives Your Mood a Lift
When you’re feeling down, head out for a walk. Remember the #stupidwalkchallenge trend? It works — and it doesn’t even have to be a long walk. In a study published in Health Promotion Perspectives in 2018, young adults who performed a 10-minute bout of brisk walking saw their mood rise — particularly when it came to feelings of fatigue — compared with a control group who were instructed to simply sit. Getting up and moving helps you shake off feelings of low energy, which can contribute to an overall sense of feeling down. Earlier research by the same authors, published in Mayo Clinic Proceedings in 2017, found that even five minutes of walking helped improve mood and lower symptoms of depression.
4. Walking Is Good for Weight Loss
If you’re setting out to lose weight, know that you don’t have to participate in a strenuous exercise program (unless, of course, that’s the type of workout you prefer). In a study of adults whose weights were considered overweight or obese, those who consumed a calorie-reduced diet and walked for 2.5 hours per week for 12 weeks reduced fasting insulin levels and had greater fat loss, compared with calorie restriction alone, according to research published in The Journal of Nutrition in 2017. (Both groups also lost about 8 percent of their body weight, meaning they both lost the same amount of weight, but those who added walking to a calorie-controlled diet lost more fat, which is the type of weight you want to be losing, rather than losing weight because of decreased muscle mass.)
5. Walking Promotes Heart Health
Walking regularly will work your heart — notably taking down your cholesterol numbers. High cholesterol is a risk factor for heart disease, says the CDC, and decreasing total cholesterol numbers by 10 percent can slash your risk of heart disease by nearly one-third. Walking can help you make that happen. In a meta-analysis of 21 studies that focused on women who were overweight or obese, doing a walking routine for at least four weeks (but making no other intentional behavior changes) helped them decrease total cholesterol and LDL (“bad”) cholesterol by about 7 mg/dL, per the American Journal of Health Promotion. In addition, a 2021 Cochrane review of 73 trials concluded that walking may also help decrease blood pressure — another risk factor for heart disease — if done three to five times per week for 20 to 40 minutes each time, over the course of three months.
