You’ve probably heard that you should walk 10,000 steps a day. It’s printed on fitness trackers, repeated in ads, and shared on social media. But where did that number come from? And is it right for someone in their 60s, 70s, or beyond?
Researchers have spent the last several years putting step counts to the test. The answers are encouraging, especially if 10,000 steps has always sounded out of reach.
Where “10,000 steps” came from
In their 2019 study of older women, Dr. I-Min Lee and colleagues pointed out that the 10,000-step goal likely traces back to a pedometer sold in Japan in the 1960s, whose name roughly meant “10,000 steps meter.” In other words, it began as a catchy marketing number, not a scientific finding.
The 2022 study described below said much the same: although 10,000 steps a day is widely promoted, there has been little evidence to support it as the right target.
The big study: 15 groups, 47,000 people
In 2022, a team led by Dr. Amanda Paluch published a major analysis in The Lancet Public Health. They combined data from 15 studies across Asia, Australia, Europe, and North America. In total, the analysis included 47,471 adults, who wore step-counting devices and were followed for about 7 years on average.
Here’s what they found:
- People in the group with the most daily steps had a 40% to 53% lower risk of dying during the study, compared with people in the group with the fewest steps.
- The more steps people took, the lower their risk tended to be, up to a point.
- That point depended on age. For adults 60 and older, the risk kept dropping until about 6,000 to 8,000 steps a day, then leveled off. For adults under 60, it leveled off at about 8,000 to 10,000 steps.
- The evidence that walking faster adds extra benefit, beyond the total number of steps, was mixed.
For adults 60 and older, the benefits of daily steps leveled off around 6,000 to 8,000 a day, not 10,000.
What about your heart?
In 2023, the same research group looked at heart and blood vessel disease. They combined 8 studies with more than 20,000 adults. For adults 60 and older, taking about 6,000 to 9,000 steps a day was linked to a 40% to 50% lower risk of cardiovascular disease, compared with taking about 2,000 steps a day.
Interestingly, the link was clear in older adults but not in younger ones during the study period. One reason may be that heart disease takes many years to develop, so it shows up more often in older groups.
A study of older women
Dr. Lee’s 2019 study, published in JAMA Internal Medicine, followed about 16,700 women with an average age of 72. Women who averaged about 4,400 steps a day had a 41% lower risk of dying during the study than women who averaged about 2,700 steps. The benefit kept growing with more steps, then leveled off at about 7,500 steps a day.
This is good news for anyone who is starting low. Going from very few steps to a few thousand more was linked to meaningful benefits.
Every 1,000 steps may count
A 2023 analysis in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology combined 17 studies with more than 226,000 people. It found that each additional 1,000 steps a day was linked to about a 15% lower risk of death from any cause during the studies. Across the range of step counts they looked at, more steps tended to go with lower risk.
Beyond longevity: other benefits of walking
The CDC lists many benefits of regular physical activity for adults 65 and older, including:
- Better sleep and less anxiety, sometimes right away.
- A lower risk of depression and of dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease.
- Better balance and stronger bones, which can lower the risk of falls.
- Help with staying independent for longer.
For many people, those day-to-day benefits matter even more than any number on a chart.
So, what should your goal be?
Here’s a practical way to use this research:
- Find your starting point. Count your average steps for a normal week. Don’t change anything yet. Just notice.
- Add a little. Try adding about 500 to 1,000 steps a day to your average. A short walk after a meal is one easy way.
- Hold steady, then add again. Every couple of weeks, if it feels good, add a bit more.
- Aim for a range, not a magic number. For many adults over 60, working toward 6,000 to 8,000 steps a day is a reasonable, research-based goal. If that’s not realistic for you right now, more than you’re doing today is still a win.
Remember that steps are just one way to measure activity. The CDC also recommends muscle-strengthening and balance activities for older adults each week. Swimming, cycling, and chair exercises count as activity too, even if they don’t add steps.
Where Senior Steps fits in
You can’t improve what you don’t measure. That’s why we built Senior Steps, a free walking app for adults 55 and over that’s coming soon to the App Store and Google Play. It will track your daily steps so you can see your starting point and your progress. And when you want to, you’ll be able to share your steps with family by text or email in one tap. Until then, many phones have a built-in step counter you can use.
Whether your goal is 3,000 steps or 8,000, the best step count is one that’s a little higher than yesterday’s.