How Many STEPS Should You Walk To Stay HEALTHY?

Hello Health Champions today I'm going to talk  about how many steps you really need per day for  

Optimal Health so often we hear that number 10  000 it's 10 000 steps a day as if there was some  

magical number and the reason we keep hearing that  is that research has shown that people who walk  

more they are healthier they live longer they have  less disease they lose weight better they have  

lower incidence of type 2 diabetes cardiovascular  disease dementia and so on but this research also  

shows that 2 000 steps is a lot better than  nothing and it shows that ten thousand steps is  

better than five thousand so more steps of walking  more is better than walking less for your health  

and some Research indicates that people have more  of a hunter-gatherer lifestyle that we can assume  

our ancestors had they probably take upwards of  thirty thousand own steps a day so that would be  

how much our bodies are genetically designed for  or how much we would actually need but the problem  

with all this research and all the people quoting  the research and trying to come up with guidelines  

is they don't explain anything about why steps or  walking would do this is there something magical  

about steps so basically these recommendations  now just become something else that we should  

do but you do not need another should we need to  understand how this stuff works so first you need  

to light yourself enough you need to care enough  about yourself to want to take care of yourself  

the best way you can then you want to understand  why steps would help or what other types of  

activity would help and what it does and then  you can start doing it right so first of all it's  

not really about steps but it is an indicator of  your overall activity because for a lot of people  

it's the only exercise they get is walking and  therefore if you walk more than you have a higher  

overall activity but really what this walking  or activity does is it provides three things  

one is brain stimulation it provides circulatory  benefits and hormonal benefits now why would brain  

stimulation be so important because every cell  in your body every tissue works on the principle  

of use it or lose it resources are precious in  the body so if we don't use something then why  

keep it around so basically muscles need tension  the purpose of a muscle is to create tension if  

we do that we get muscles if we stop doing that  if we have less tension now we get atrophy use  

it or lose it same thing with bones the purpose of  Bones is to resist gravity if we have less gravity  

or if we have less activity that exposes us to  the impact of gravity now we get osteoporosis  

now the purpose of the brain is to receive and  process and produce signals so if we have enough  

signals we're going to have a strong brain but  if we start having less signals for the brain  

to process now we get brain degeneration which  is just another word for atrophy meaning the  

tissue shrinks and goes away and if you want to  create more signals for the brain then you need  

to start understanding where they come from and  the vast majority of signals come from Movement  

we have three tissues primarily joints muscles  and tendons that pick up different aspects of  

motion and tension and transmitted to the brain as  signals and motion obviously is all about joints  

we have over 300 joints in the body and over a  hundred of those are in the spine but it doesn't  

even end there it's about receptor density it's  how many receptors we have per square inch and we  

need a whole lot more of them where it's important  so recep chapters increase in density as we get  

closer to the midline of the body and the increase  as we go from the bottom to the top so basically  

the spine and closer to the head is where we get  the biggest bang for the buck and even though most  

of the signals are generated for movement out of  those signals more than 90 percent are generated  

from the spine and especially the upper portion  of the spine and if you start understanding some  

of that then it's not just how many steps you  take but it is how you walk and there's a huge  

difference if you walk actively and you create  some motion in the whole body or if you're just  

staring at your phone and stepping along like  this it's not the number of steps it is how many  

signals are generated as you do it so here's  what's happening when you walk if you have a  

person who's facing this way then the they have  different Curves in the spine and the first first  

curve in the neck is called lordosis or lordonic  curve and then as you get into the chest it turns  

the other way and it's called a kyphosis then you  get into the lumbars and now it turns the other  

way again and then it finishes in the sacrum so  we basically have one two three curves and these  

act as shock absorbers it's like a spring that as  you're walking and bouncing a little bit then the  

brain and the head and the tissues are protected  by this spring action and this is one more curve  

than most other land animals are going to have  if they walk on all fours if they're not fully  

upright then they only need two curves but with  these three curves we have more shock absorption  

when we're walking fully upright so therefore your  posture when you're walking is hugely important  

because if you have a proper posture and your  upright now these curves are going to flow one  

into the other they're going to cooperate you're  going to get more motion from each little bounce  

of the spring you're going to get more signals  generated into the brain whereas if you don't have  

a good posture if you're walking hunched over  and you're looking at your iPad or your phone  

now you're not getting nearly the same number of  signals generated another thing that matters with  

the posture is the intensity so you basically have  one if we look at the body from the top now there  

is one axis through the hips and one axis through  the shoulders so if you're walking in a full range  

of motion and Swinging your arms now you're going  to have a rotation a counter rotation between the  

shoulders and the hips and now we're getting more  of that motion into the body the next benefit is  

circulatory when you walk you increase your heart  rate you increase your circulation and when you  

pump more blood you increase the oxygenation  you deliver more oxygen and more nutrients  

to every cell in the body and while the blood is  doing that is also picking up more waste so it's  

a form of detox it's assisting your body in its  detoxification process but just how much blood are  

you pumping what is the circulation so let's just  give a couple of examples here that your heart  

fills up with blood and then when it's full it  squeezes it back out that's called stroke volume  

the amount and that's roughly 70 milliliters and  on average people have about a heart rate of 70  

beats per minute so we multiply that out and we  get five liters of blood circulating every minute  

and that's also roughly how much blood a normal  person has five liters so you circulate all your  

blood on average every minute at rest but when you  exercise now you increase the circulation so the  

blood is also coming back faster to the heart and  it's filling up the heart faster and more so if we  

fill it more the heart is going to squeeze harder  more effectively and we could actually double that  

stroke volume and if we increase the stroke volume  and the heart rate we could pump as much as 17  

liters of blood in something as simple as walking  it's not even like maximum effort here and even if  

these numbers don't apply exactly to you it gives  you the idea that you can dramatically increase  

that circulation by something as simple as walking  but there are more benefits than just the heart  

pumping there are other pumping mechanisms from  exercise so when you walk there is a squeezing  

of the calf and you have veins in the calf that  the muscles squeeze on it and it helps return  

the blood to the heart and this is very important  mechanism this is also why walking helps reduce  

varicose veins because we help reduce that  venous pressure in the lower extremity and one  

more pumping mechanism is in all of the joints so  in every joint you have something called synovial  

fluid and it's very important for the body to keep  the blood circulation separate from the inside  

of the joint where the synovial fluid is because  those red blood cells could destroy the joint and  

therefore the the blood only gets to the outside  of the joint and the inside of the joint is very  

poorly oxygenated so the the nutrients and the  oxygen are diffused by a pumping mechanism as we  

move the joint we're kind of squishing that fluid  around and that is how we get new fluid in and  

old fluid and nutrients and waste out so cartilage  for example has no vascularity there are no blood  

vessels in cartilage but we still need to get some  nutrients there cartilage heals very very slowly  

if at all but we still need to get some nutrients  there and this pumping action from motion is what  

drives that so here you basically want to think  of SpongeBob that if you squeeze the fluid out  

and then you let go now it's going to suck fluid  back in so that's another very important mechanism  

from exercise and walking but exercise also has  hormonal benefits and one of those is that you  

increase growth hormone with all activity there's  a little bit of growth hormone increase and  

there's also an increase in something called bdnf  brain derived neurotrophic factor and these two  

put together are essential for making new synapses  for making new Pathways in the brain for improving  

neuroplasticity and helping the brain learn  and in all the other things the brain does so  

there's an enormous benefit to exercise for brain  health and another benefit is that it will reduce  

the dependence on insulin walking you will use  up some carbohydrates that will reduce the need  

for insulin but more so the cells the muscles when  they're active they don't need hardly any insulin  

to get the glucose into the muscle so an active  muscle is much more insulin sensitive and it's  

not enough just to walk if you have a fatty liver  and you're extremely insulin resistance if you're  

metabolically unhealthy that's not going to be  enough just to do some walking but it's one part  

of the solution so it absolutely helps now once  we talk about all these benefits of growth hormone  

bdnf and Insulin I talk a lot about those on this  channel and the most powerful way to address that  

is high intensity exercise and fasting that's  what's going to make the biggest change in these  

but like I said every part counts and walking  absolutely helps but what is so special about  

walking is there anything special because most  of the benefits that we talked about the brain  

stimulation the circulatory the hormonal we can  get from all kinds of different activities but  

there is one thing that's special about walking  and that is called cross crawl so we have a gate  

pattern that when you're walking you're moving one  leg forward and the opposite arm forward at the  

same time so left leg forward right arm forward  right leg forward left arm forward that's called  

a cross crawl pattern that's our normal gait  pattern and why is that so important because  

it is something that is patterned into our nervous  system and it is one of the most fundamental and  

the strongest the most powerful patterns it has  a huge influence on how the brain is organized  

and what they have found actually is that there  is a strong connection between babies who don't  

get to crawl and an increased risk for attention  deficit for an increased risk of Dyslexia and kids  

who don't get to crawl properly also are more  poorly coordinated they don't have as much  

coordination and because of that they are more  prone to injuries and hopefully you can see that  

this is mostly about creating signals at this  point and if we want to create more signals  

then there are certain factors that influence how  many signals we create so speed the velocity of a  

movement is highly influential the amplitude if  we make a small motion or a big Motion makes a  

big difference and the number of repetitions so if  you do it once it's not very much if you walking  

and you get a thousand repetitions that starts  adding up and the fourth factor is the complexity  

if we do something very repetitive it's not very  challenging for the brain now walking is great for  

the reasons we talked about because it reinforces  a very basic organizational pattern in the body  

but if we want to create more signals overall we  also want to do things that are complex so if we  

involve more variety it's more challenging for the  brain so arm swing is one factor for complexity  

and we want to make sure that we swing our arms  that we have a full arm swing and symmetrical  

arm swing one of the first signs of neural  degeneration such as Parkinson's and dementia  

is a loss of arm swing when people walk like this  very often it's because their brains don't work  

well enough to create an arm swing so it's a sign  of degeneration but you can also use it as therapy  

by swinging your arms more you're creating more  Sigma emails you're reinforcing those beneficial  

patterns if you want to increase complexity in  other ways then you can walk on uneven terrain  

because now when the ground is uneven now there is  more adapting more compensating more adjusting for  

the brain to do so something like Trail hiking  will improve the complexity and if you get out  

in the wilderness where everything is completely  unpredictable you have to step over things and  

bend under things now there's even more complexity  there but a lot of activities with varied Behavior  

are totally fine things like dancing or tennis  and badminton where you move quickly in different  

directions and you have to use a lot of balance  and Agility all of these are great examples of  

how to increase the complexity and increase the  signal so if you understand this then it's not  

about just strapping on some step counter and  getting to ten thousand you can get a lot more  

benefit with fewer steps if you understand how  this works so my recommendation is that you do  

something because something is a lot better than  nothing when it comes to exercise and the next  

rule is that more is better until it is not so  it's very possible to over train and people who  

get really hooked on an activity they sort of get  addicted to it and that's not what we're looking  

for if you're over training then you might start  feeling worn down and that's how you can notice if  

you pay attention to the body if you're losing  some of the spring in your step if you start  

getting aches and pains if you don't feel fresh  going into a workout or if it feels like you're  

not recovering properly then it's probably time  to back off and everyone has a different starting  

point but I think 30 minutes per day of gentle to  moderate activity would be something to strive for  

and I put 30 plus here because if you keep it  at a low intensity like walking or hiking then  

you really can do it for hours every day and  you're not going to wear yourself down but it  

comes down to your level of fitness and how much  time you have on your hand ends and your overall  

joint health and so forth so just use common sense  but at least 30 minutes probably five six times  

a day I would not strive for seven times a day  unless it's very gentle because you do want to  

give your body some recovery and then I suggest  you add some stretching because stretching also  

sends massive amounts of signals to the brain  but it also acts as a reset so your body and  

your brain talks all the time the brain gets a  certain sense of the length of the muscles and  

the tension on the tendons and when you stretch  you're helping the brain create a reset so it's  

like the brain gets back to a Baseline and starts  understanding the body better and then you want  

to add some variety because we talked about all  the benefits of walking like the gate pattern  

that's a special benefit but walking is not very  complex it's not all that demanding it's pretty  

repetitive so you put the walking the steps in as  a foundation and then you add some variety you add  

different Hobbies whatever you enjoy doing and if  you're one of those hundreds of millions of people  

who get blood work every year by your doctor but  no one ever explains to you what it means then  

you might consider taking my blood work course  I release that for people who want to understand  

more about their body to take charge of their  health so if you understand your markers and you  

understand the early changes now you don't have to  wait for it to become a problem if you can catch  

things like anemia and hypothyroid and insulin  resistance and type 2 diabetes and understand  

these markers at a very early level then you never  have to develop a problem that's what prevention  

is and in this course we'll also talk about some  of the reasons reasons and what to look for in  

terms of stubborn weight why does everyone seem to  lose weight five times faster than you do and also  

a huge problem is people don't understand the  real risk factors for heart disease they just  

look at the total cholesterol if it's to over  200 their doctor says here's your prescription  

for a Statin where total cholesterol is one of  the last things that you want to be concerned  

with when it comes to risk of heart disease so  by understanding all of this and really taking  

ownership of your health now you can take charge  and make some changes and improve your health and  

reduce your risk for disease if you enjoyed this  video you're going to love that one and if you  

truly want to master Health by understanding how  the body really works make sure you subscribe hit  

that Bell and turn on all the notifications  so you never miss a life-saving video