It's 9:30 p.m. when you check your phone and see the bad news...
You only logged 5,200 steps for the day. So much for 10,000.
For years, our fitness trackers and pedometers have trained us to judge our day's activity by one number... Hit that step goal, and you'll feel accomplished. Fall short, and you'll suffer from a pang of guilt.
But the 10,000-step goal didn't even come from a medical source. Instead, it's from a 1960s Japanese marketing campaign for pedometers.
Turns out, you probably don't need that many steps each day. Scientists have been putting that idea to the test in recent years...
A 2024 JAMA Network Open meta-analysis reviewed 33 studies involving 96,173 adults from 13 different countries. Researchers looked at these folks' daily step counts, as well as whether they were diagnosed with depression or reported depressive symptoms.
The analysis revealed that folks who walked at least 7,500 steps a day had a 42% lower prevalence of depression. If that step count seems daunting, don't worry... Participants who walked just 5,000 steps also reported fewer depressive symptoms versus the adults who walked fewer steps. Even just adding 1,000 extra steps led to a 9% lower risk of depression.
Another meta-analysis published in the Lancet Public Health in 2025 examined 57 studies from 35 groups of people around the world. Compared with taking just 2,000 steps a day, getting about 7,000 was linked to a 47% lower risk of dying from any cause.
Getting 7,000 steps daily was also linked to a 25% lower risk of developing cardiovascular disease... a 38% lower risk of dementia... and a 14% lower risk of developing Type 2 diabetes.
(Regular readers have heard me say this before... What's good for your body is good for your brain health, too. And throughout my 30 years of medical experience, I've found even more simple, science-backed ways to protect your memory and thinking as you age. It's all in my latest book, Power Up Your Brain! – and you can grab your own copy here.)
Now, that doesn't mean you should stop walking when your smartwatch or step tracker flashes "7,000." If you like walking 10,000 steps, keep at it. My point is, you don't need to hit an arbitrary five-digit number to do some good for your body.
And guess what? Step count is just one way to measure your daily walk...
It's Not Just About Your Step Count
Scientists took things a little further in a recent British Journal of Sports Medicine study which involved 64,743 U.K. adults aged 62 on average.
For seven days, participants wore accelerometers on their wrists. Researchers measured two things: the total number of steps taken each day and something called "peak 30-minute cadence." That's the average number of steps taken per minute during a participant's 30 most brisk minutes of the day. Those 30 minutes don't necessarily have to happen all at once – it could be a combination of a few minutes of brisk walking through a parking garage, another burst while going to lunch, and a quick walk after dinner.
Researchers then looked at how different combinations of step count and pace were associated with the risk of dying from any cause. And they found that both stats mattered...
Among the participants who logged fewer than 5,000 daily steps, a peak cadence of about 80 steps per minute was associated with 28% lower risk of premature death from any cause compared with the least-active participants.
The lowest estimated risk overall showed up in participants who took about 7,500 to 10,000 steps daily with a peak cadence of about 100 steps per minute.
So here's the takeaway...
Put Some Pep in Your Step
If 7,000 or 10,000 steps per day seems impossible, don't give up on walking completely. Instead, start with what you're already doing... but just pick up the pace.
For example, I'll sometimes walk a little faster for a block or two during my post-meal stroll. Or maybe I'll park a little farther away at the grocery store and walk briskly to the entrance.
Just don't get overly hung up on hitting exactly 80 or 100 steps per minute.
No fitness tracker? No problem...
You can use the old-fashioned "talk test." If you're exercising at a moderate intensity, you should be breathing noticeably harder than usual. At that point, you can still converse, but singing would be tough.
So the next time you check your phone or smartwatch in the evening and see you didn't log as many steps as you think you did, don't beat yourself up. Those steps still count. And if some of them got your heart pumping a little faster, they might be doing even more good than the number on your screen suggests.
What's your favorite way to sneak in a little more walking – or a little more pep – into your day? Share with us at feedback@healthandwealthbulletin.com.
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Here's to our health, wealth, and a great retirement,
Dr. David Eifrig and the Health & Wealth Bulletin Research Team
October 6, 2026