The surprising number of daily steps that could sharpen your mind its not 10,000

Step aside, wellness myth.That widely recommended goal of 10,000 daily steps is actually a 60-year-old marketing misconception.We now know that far fewer daily steps — 2,300 to 7,000 — help with strengthening the heart and blood vessels, and lower risk of early death, stroke and depression.But how many do you need to protect your brain?New research from Baylor College of Medicine in Houston found out exactly how many daily steps are associated with better cognitive performance.Instead of relying on potentially inaccurate self-reported step counts like most previous studies, this new study used objective Fitbit data.Researchers took data from 2009 to 2023 — 14 years — from 3,093 participants aged 18 to 93.

The average age was 58.They found that people’s step habits generally fell into three groups: The least active group averaged 5,108 daily steps, the moderately active group around 8,875, while the most active completed around 14,161.Then, researchers put them to the test.Specifically, four tests to measure performance across attention span, delaying gratification, recognizing emotional cues and ignoring distractions.Overall, the moderately and most active groups performed significantly better than the least active group in the tests measuring sustained attention, ignoring distractions and delayed gratification.But the most active group didn’t outperform the moderately active group on every test.

The most active scored highest on sustained attention and delayed gratification, while the moderately active group scored highest on ignoring distractions.The study also builds on established recommendations: any exercise is better than none, but more is still better.Every additional 1,000 steps daily at a moderate pace — about 9 minutes — improved scores across sustained attention, ignoring distractions and delayed gratification.The Fitbits participants wore also gave researchers insight into their blood pressure, which researchers believed might be low...