Steps and walking

How many steps a day should I walk?

By GyroscopeUpdated November 14, 20265 sources

8,000 to 10,000 a day if you’re under 60, and 6,000 to 8,000 at 60 and up. That’s where the drop in risk of death leveled off across 15 studies of 47,471 adults. Most of the drop comes before that, and 7,000 steps against 2,000 already went with 47% lower risk in a 2025 review.

10,000 is on every watch and in every app, so most people treat it as the line between healthy and not. People at 6,000 feel like they’re failing, and people at 12,000 think they’re done with exercise for the day. Neither is quite right. The number started as a slogan, the real curve depends on your age, and most of its drop comes well before 10,000.

Steps are like water for a dry plant. The first cups change everything, and once the soil is damp, more water runs out the bottom of the pot.

The curve, from 15 studies

In 2022, Amanda Paluch and colleagues gathered 15 step studies from around the world, seven published and eight never published, and had every team rerun its data the same way. That gave them 47,471 adults followed for a median of 7 years. They split people into four groups by daily steps:

The drop kept going until 8,000 to 10,000 steps a day in adults under 60, and until 6,000 to 8,000 in adults 60 and up. Once total steps were counted, the time people spent walking briskly didn’t add a clear benefit. These are people who chose how much to walk, so the curve shows what went with a longer life. It can’t promise any one person the same.

What 7,000 did

A 2025 review of 57 studies compared 7,000 steps a day with 2,000:

The curve for death bent at around 5,000 to 7,000 steps. The authors wrote that 10,000 is still a fine target for people who are already active, and that 7,000 is a more realistic one for many. Some of the findings rest on only two or three studies, and the falls result is the least certain.

Where did 10,000 come from?

Not from a study. In 2004, the step researchers Catrine Tudor-Locke and David Bassett traced it to Japanese walking clubs and a business slogan from more than 30 years earlier. Fifteen years later, a team studying 16,741 older US women wrote that 10,000 “has limited scientific basis.” Our 10,000 steps myth has the full story.

How far are you?

If you’re 45 and your average is 4,500, you’re about 3,500 steps short of the flat part for your age, about a 35-minute brisk walk. If you’re 65 and at 5,000, you’re about 1,000 short, a 10-minute walk. Steps for your age puts your own number on the curve. And if you want to know what those steps burn, tdee.guide has the calories in 10,000 steps.