How just 20 minutes of walking a day can transform your health

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If your exercise arsenal was a spice rack, walking would be the salt. It’s not the only thing you need for excellent health – or a tasty meal – but it lays the foundation for an effective exercise routine.

“We should be walking every single day,” says Dr Courtney Conley, a chiropractic physician and co-author of Walk: Your Life Depends on It. “It’s a non-negotiable if we want to live well for longer.

“Anything is better than nothing. You can start with a five-minute walk. But what’s really interesting to me is that when I see patients with a daily step count of 2,500 or less, it comes with a diagnosis of depression or sadness almost 100 per cent of the time. If you are only moving 2,500 steps a day, you don’t feel well, physically or mentally.”

The human body thrives when it is moved regularly, but modern life no longer demands it – few people are foraging for their dinner nowadays. The remedy lies in finding ways to move more, and walking is the most accessible (and arguably the most enjoyable) option for most people. So, you guessed it, that’s our theme for this week.

NHS physical activity guidelines advise adults aged 19–64 to accumulate a weekly total of 150 minutes of moderate-intensity activity, 75 minutes of vigorous-intensity activity, or an equivalent mixture of the two. This can sound like gibberish to a lot of people.

Intensity is relative to the individual. Moderate-intensity means your heart rate is raised and you’re breathing a bit harder, but you can still hold a fairly fluent conversation. For most people, this means a brisk walk, or a jog or cycle for fitter individuals.

Vigorous-intensity is where you’re sweating and breathing hard enough that you can’t speak in full sentences – an effort level you can only sustain for a few minutes at a time. This could range from a tough uphill walk to a HIIT workout or running intervals, depending on your fitness level.

“The guidelines are built on a solid evidence base showing that this level of activity significantly reduces the risk of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, certain cancers and premature death,” says Jack McNamara, a clinical exercise physiologist, strength coach and course leader at the University of East London. “The problem is that around a third of UK adults don’t meet them.”

If you can consistently do a little over 20 minutes of brisk walking each day, you’re well on your way to better health. Add one or two short weekly strength-training sessions on top of this and you have a healthier routine than most Brits.

“Walking should be on every doctor’s prescription pad,” says Dr Conley. “It is the panacea of medicine. When someone views walking as a physiological necessity, seeing 7,000 daily steps as equivalent to six to eight hours of sleep, it builds a foundation of wellness.”

Daily step goals will vary depending on the individual (more on how to set an appropriate daily step goal here), although 7,000 has been identified by several studies as a time-efficient, health-boosting target.

Whatever your goal, walking more can spark a virtuous cycle, Dr Conley says. Walking makes you feel better; feeling better gives you the energy to exercise more; people who exercise tend to eat better and sleep better; proper fuel and rest make you more likely to lead an active life; and the cycle continues.

Research has also linked walking to improved mood and mental health, reduced risk of death from any cause, protective effects against cancer, heart disease and dementia, better blood sugar regulation, injury prevention and improved physical function.

Put simply, it has an uncanny knack for helping you feel better, both inside and out.

Now, back to the NHS guidelines. Given they advise 150 minutes of moderate-intensity activity or 75 minutes of vigorous-intensity activity, we can deduce that higher-intensity exercise is a more time-efficient way to gain greater health benefits.

Fortunately, there are simple ways to up the intensity of your regular walk: pick up the pace, tackle some hills, or even carry a slightly weighty rucksack. Research also suggests that longer walks (15 minutes or more) and walking immediately after meals offer additional health benefits.

However, vigorous-intensity activity is not for everyone. For some people, it may not feel good – and we are unlikely to stick with activities that don’t feel good.

Professor Stamatakis’ research suggests that many of the benefits of higher-intensity exercise can be achieved through lower-intensity movement – you simply need to do more of it to gain similar effects. This brings us back to Dr Conley’s earlier point: “Anything is better than nothing.”

If you can find ways to walk more, you will probably feel better. And if something I write here can help you feel better, I can be satisfied with a job well done.

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