The surprising number of daily steps that could sharpen your mind
New York Post • • health
Key Points:
- The widely recommended goal of 10,000 daily steps is a 60-year-old marketing myth; research shows that 2,300 to 7,000 steps help improve heart health and reduce risks of early death, stroke, and depression.
- A new Baylor College of Medicine study using Fitbit data from 3,093 participants over 14 years found that moderate (around 8,875 steps) and high (around 14,161 steps) daily step counts are linked to better cognitive performance, especially in attention, delayed gratification, and ignoring distractions.
- The study revealed that every additional 1,000 moderate-paced steps (about 9 minutes) improved cognitive test scores, supporting the idea that more physical activity benefits brain function.
- Higher systolic blood pressure was slightly associated with worse decision-making and delayed gratification, but blood pressure explained only about 5% of the link between physical activity and cognitive performance.
- Limitations include a mostly white, educated, insured, and female participant group, a single cognitive assessment, and uncertainty about causation versus correlation between activity and cognition.
