A recent study revealed that walking 5,000 steps a day helps reduce symptoms of depression, and that its benefit increases with the increase in the distance a person walks daily.
As part of the study published by the scientific journal “Gamma Network”, researchers analyzed the results of 33 previous research papers that covered more than 97,000 people from 13 countries.
Volunteers in the experiment used devices to measure distance and speed and smartphones to determine the number of steps they took daily, while reporting changes in their health condition as a result of exercise.
It turns out that walking 5,000 steps a day is associated with a reduction in symptoms of depression, which are associated with feelings of sadness, stress, social isolation, sleep disturbances, loss of appetite, and feeling exhausted.
According to the study, walking more than 7,500 steps reduces symptoms of depression by 42%.
The members of the study confirm in statements to the website “Health Day”, which specializes in medical research, that despite the need to verify the validity of these results, making sure to exercise daily and counting the number of steps a person takes on a daily basis benefits various aspects of health, and not only with regard to heart disease.