United States: A new study shows that walking more steps each day can help reduce feelings of depression. The study found that as people take more steps, up to about 10,000 a day, the chances of feeling depressed decrease. The research, done in Spain, was published on Dec. 16 in the journal JAMA Network Open.
The researchers, including Estela Jimenez-Lopez, of the University of Castile-La Mancha, pointed out that there is enough evidence that exercise of any type is an antidepressant. But what if something that simple, like walking, is lost?
As reported by the Medical Xpress, to answer this, they analyzed data from only high-quality studies on daily step counts, as well as mental health.
Overall, the new review included 33 trials conducted on more than 96,000 adults globally. Participants count their everyday steps using the fitness-tracker devices and other related contraptions.
Looking at a base of 5,000 steps taken per day, people who reported they took at least a thousand more steps every day were 9% less likely to develop depression, according to the study.
Those benefits quickly mounted up: Another interesting and somehow surprising finding was that if the members of the study walked 7,000 steps/day they had 31% lower odds for getting depressed as compared with people walking 5000 steps or even less.
The authors Jimenez-Lopez and others added that, “Counts above 7,500 steps/d were associated with a 43% lower prevalence of depression.” And that pattern was “consistent, for all age groups, both for females and males.”
Mental health benefits relative to the baseline also appeared to plateau at about 10,000 steps per day, according to the data.
Analysing the results of similar research on physical health, the authors noted that “increasing the number of steps a day beyond 10,000 might not correlate with a decrease in depressive symptoms.”
The new findings put walking into many other forms of physical activity that include aerobics, weight training, yoga and even tai chi as effective means of protecting against depression, the researchers said.
The bottom line: In conclusion, the authors said: ‘Specifically, integrating goal setting for number of daily steps in the prevention of depression may be an effective, non-stigmatising public health approach.’