HOW MANY STEPS SHOULD WE – REALLY – BE WALKING?

Here in the UK, it’s HOT.  And when it’s this warm, it’s tempting to find a shady spot and do very little.  However, can I politely suggest you continue to get your daily steps in? I’ve been enjoying evening ambles and dawn saunters.  Get to the sea, a forest or mountains/hills if you can – I’ll explain why later in this post (hint: it’s not just that they’re cooler!)

And yes, my Apple health app shows that, over the last 26 weeks, I’ve averaged 16,127 steps (11 km) a day. Of course, much of that was done on deliciously cool and wet days.  But why am I harping on about daily steps?  And do we really need to take so many steps a day? After all, recent studies suggest that somewhere around 7,000-8,000 daily steps is perfect for older people, with benefits tailing off after that.

Moreover, everyone now knows that the 10,000 step ‘rule’ was devised by a Japanese marketing company who liked the neatness of the  (untested) 10,000 number.

However, Professor Janet Lord – an expert in immune cell biology and longevity from the University of Birmingham – suggests that the 10,000 step rule is one we should definitely be following.  Lord’s research found that 10,000 steps has dramatic benefits.

In a recent Zoe podcast interview,  she discussed daily steps in some detail.  Her work found that while between 5,000–7,000 daily steps  halved inflammaging, getting to 10,000 steps wiped it out altogether.  Susan and I are fascinated by ‘inflammaging’ and regular readers will know that we’ve been talking about it for over a decade. A quick recap: inflammaging is the  progressive, mild immune activation that builds up over time (often caused/exacerbated by excess weight, stress, bad diet and poor health), increasing exponentially as we get older. It’s a hallmark of ageing and Lord – like many longevity experts – believes that inflammaging lies at the very heart of most diseases of older age: heart disease, cancer, dementia, frailty.  It doesn’t show up in the standard CRP test for inflammation, because it’s not acute enough.

But if 10,000 daily steps counters all inflammaging, I’ll take it! Which is to say, if you want to age well, stick – like araldite – to 10,000 steps a day.

Other studies published this year have also indicated that more steps are always better and that the benefits do not dramatically tail off. This study indicates that every 1,000 extra steps we take—beyond 2,500 a day—  reduces our risk of death from any cause by 12 percent. So why stop at 7,000?

And what about those of us who are walking well beyond the 10,000 steps?  Well, it turns out that more is better: a very recent study found that people walking around 7-8 miles a day, approximately 16,000 steps for the average adult – had the longest life expectancy of all.

I must be honest: my recent daily walking ‘average’ was boosted by two weeks of long distance hiking through the hills of France. On this two-week hike, I was astonished by the French walkers we met (there were no English people, only French), most of whom were in their 60s and 70s.  They walked between 16 and 28 km every day, many carrying heavy backpacks, uphill and downhill, often in the heat. They were up early, always cheerful and, surprisingly, very few of them drank wine in the evenings. We found our fellow walkers truly inspirational.

As it happens, the first leg of our journey followed in the footsteps of Robert Louis Stevenson, who walked this route with a donkey 150 years ago and then wrote about it in a wonderful book, Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes.  The route is now known, by the French, as ‘Le Stevenson’.  Officially, it’s the GR 70, le Chemin de Stevenson. And it’s a beautiful route, through the wilds of the Auvergne and the Cevennes (hills, forests and moderate altitude). While walking it, I also immersed myself in Stevenson’s extraordinary life.  He didn’t age well. He died, aged 44, of  a stroke having suffered from severe respiratory troubles for most of his adult life. But, while walking in the Cevennes, his lungs didn’t bother him.

More interesting though, was where he felt better.  His wife, Fanny, having realised that Stevenson’s health improved dramatically whenever he was on, or very close to, the sea, or in mountains, ensured that he stayed in these landscapes.  It’s possible that he would have died long before had he lived in less wholesome locations.  Sea air seemed to be the most important thing.  Stevenson always felt better when he was on the sea. He responded to mountain air too, but Fanny wasn’t so keen on mountains.

I wrote about the remarkable benefits of breathing at altitude in a February post.  But, having researched sea air extensively for my latest book The Walking Cure, I was intrigued by Stevenson’s claims.  As I explained in my book, researchers have known for a while that people living in coastal areas typically have better health – far fewer coastal inhabitants died of Covid, for example. New studies from Belgium show that sea air can shrink lung cancer tumours (in petri dishes, just to be clear).  Indeed, sea air seems to have great benefits for respiratory health.

Why is this? Well, sea air contains tiny droplets of sea water, rich in iodine, magnesium, calcium and potassium, as well as various vitamins, including Vitamins A and E . But sea air is also rich in anti-inflammatory and anti-cancerous molecules (including fatty acids) released from sea-dwelling phytoplankton – which we inhale as we walk.  The New Scientist magazine covered the subject in a May edition (having read my book, I’m chuffed to say!).  Finally, people are waking up to the fact that while air has always been essential for life, its place in human health may extend far beyond oxygen.

A follow-up study has since described the discovery of aeronutrients as ‘redefining the respiratory tract as a site for nutrient absorption’.  Yes, the air we breathe really can nourish our physical wellbeing.

Some air, it turns out, is also rich in the microbes we need for good intestinal health: indeed, it may be that the old adage ‘you are what you eat’ should be re-written as ‘you are what you breathe.’  As the researchers of the study cited above wrote ‘we are now discovering how intertwined the respiratory and gastrointestinal tracts are’.  Microbes are everywhere and several animal studies have demonstrated that microbiota and the gut alter according to location. As one researcher put it ‘exposure to diverse aerobiomes can influence microbiota composition and behavior, underscoring the potential for bioactive air components to affect both mental and physical health.’

In her book, Good Nature, Oxford Prof Kathy Willis (who – weirdly – teaches my son) cites dozens of studies showing how being around plant-life changes the composition of our gut, for the better.  In one study she examined, having a spider plant in a room dramatically increased the number of aerobiota found when the walls were swabbed.  She now has a house full of plants, she gardens without gloves and she touches tree trunks and foliage whenever she can.  When my son arrived at his college, he and his fellow cohort were each presented with… a spider plant. I now have one on my desk too. In my earlier book, 52 Ways to Walk, I wrote about a Finnish experiment in which children who played daily in a woodland had better quality microbiomes (and less subsequent illness) than children playing with plastic on artificial playgrounds. We clearly need regular exposure to nature!

And yet all this is hardly new. Not only did Stevenson realise that air quality affected him, but so did all the doctors who built their sanatoriums beside the sea or in the mountains – and always amid greenery and sunshine. This is old wisdom, finally being validated by science.

Walking is much better than sun-bathing, as the act of moving appears to amplify the effects.  We breathe more deeply as we walk, of course, but there also seems to be some cross-synergy between the molecules we breath and the chemicals our bodies make as we move.  For best ‘seaside walking’ effects, you need a strong wind blowing in-land.  If the wind is blowing out to sea, so are the miraculous molecules…

The Japanese have a word for the debilitating and lethargy inducing effects of extreme heat: Natsumake, meaning – literally – ‘beaten by summer.’ But we are Age-Wellers and we refuse to be beaten!  Here are my tips for getting in our steps despite the heat:

Get up early and walk early – it’s light at 4.30am and wonderfully cool, for anyone struggling to sleep. Take a dip if you can – here at the Age Well Project we’re also advocates of cold water therapy. Otherwise a cold shower will do…

Recharge by napping when it’s hottest, as the Mediterraneans do

Make use of these long light evenings by strolling in the evening/night, beside the sea if you can.  No sea? All water has good (and often cooler) air and I have chapters on the benefits of still water (lakes) and moving fresh water (rivers) in The Walking Cure.  Forests are a great and shady alternative with air rich in anti-inflammatory phytoncides (which I covered here in 2017 and here, this year).

Stop and rest frequently if you need to. None of the studies above mention speed or time. It’s all about the movement, however slow.

Use the cooler hours to lift weights – please don’t forego your strength training. It may be hot, but our bones still need building… this podcast from Peter Attia lays bare what happens when we let our bones weaken. It had me rushing to my hand weights!

Wear cool, breathable fabrics and shoes – with a hat (or a parasol) and plenty of mineral sun screen. Susan wrote about why we should be wearing mineral sun screen here.

Stay hydrated!

Too hot to sleep? Get up and take some steps if that feels safe… now is the time for spotting glow worms, gorgeous moths and – if you’re lucky – badger cubs. Last night I saw the most glorious supermoon – another reason to rise and walk!

You can find me talking about some of this on The Happy Menopause podcast here. Or come and see me in person at the Yorkshire Walking and Books Festival in Richmond on 23^rd September where I’ll be talking about the effects of landscape on our physical and mental health and, later on, leading a (real) night walk!

In the meantime, let us know how you’re coping in the comment box and please do share any tips for countering the heat (to our lovely Australian readers, you must have some hints for us?), or getting in your steps, or finding nutrient-rich air. We’d love to hear from you…

Annabel