Can you literally distance yourself from depression? A new global review of data found that “increasing the number of daily steps, even at modest levels, was associated with a reduction in depressive symptoms.”
The Spanish study showed that up to a level of about 10,000 steps per day, the risk of depression decreases as the daily number of steps increases.
The findings were published in the journal on December 16 JAMA network opened.
Researchers led by Estela Jimenez-Lopez, from the University of Castile-La Mancha, noted that there is already solid evidence that exercise of any kind is a natural antidepressant. But what about something as simple as walking?
To find out, they looked at data from high-quality studies on daily step counts and their link to mental health.
In total, the new review included 33 studies involving a total of more than 96,000 adults worldwide. Studies involved people using fitness trackers to calculate their daily steps.
Compared to a baseline of 5,000 steps per day, people who took even 1,000 more steps daily saw a 9% drop in their chance of developing depression, the researchers found.
These benefits increased quickly: Compared with people who walked 5,000 steps per day or fewer, those who walked 7,000 steps per day were 31% less likely to have depression, the study found.
“Additionally, steps above 7,500 steps per day were associated with a 43% lower prevalence of depression,” Jimenez-Lopez and colleagues wrote, and those trends held true for “all age groups, [and] females and males.”
The data showed that there was a leveling off in mental health benefits at around 10,000 steps per day.
As has been observed in physical health studies, “the number of steps increases [beyond 10,000/d] may not be associated with a significant reduction in depressive symptoms,” the researchers wrote.
The new findings add walking to many other forms of physical activity — aerobics, strength training, yoga and even tai chi — as ways to keep depression at bay, the researchers said.
The bottom line: “Setting goals for daily step counts may be a promising and inclusive public health strategy for the prevention of depression,” the study authors concluded.
More information:
The American Heart Association has more about the benefits of walking.
Bruno Bizzozero-Peroni et al., Daily step counting and depression in adults, JAMA network opened (2024). DOI: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.51208
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Quote: Walking Away From Depression: How Daily Steps Improve Mental Health (2024, December 16) Retrieved December 29, 2024 from https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-12-depression-daily-mental-health.html
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