{"id":83174,"date":"2025-08-21T18:21:06","date_gmt":"2025-08-21T18:21:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/83174\/"},"modified":"2025-08-21T18:21:06","modified_gmt":"2025-08-21T18:21:06","slug":"neither-gym-nor-hours-of-cardio-a-short-fast-walk-can-extend-your-life-more-than-a-long-slow-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/83174\/","title":{"rendered":"Neither gym nor hours of cardio\u2014a short, fast walk can extend your life more than a long, slow one"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>What\u2019s better for your health: fast walk or slow walk? We have always heard that walking is one of the simplest, most accessible and most beneficial exercises we can do. It\u2019s perfect because there\u2019s no need to go to the gym, no special equipment, nor too much free time to do it.<\/p>\n<p>However, not every walk offers the same results. A new study showed that the speed of your walk can mark a huge difference when it comes to your health and even the amount of time you can live. So, let\u2019s learn more about this.<\/p>\n<p>Walking<\/p>\n<p>Researchers from Vanderbilt University (United States) analyzed almost 80,000 adults for 17 years. They wanted to find if there were any difference between walking slow and fast when it comes to mortality and <a href=\"https:\/\/chronicdisease.org\/page\/cardiovascularhealth\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">cardiovascular health<\/a>. The results? People walking fast less than 15 minutes per day had 20% less risk of dying during the study. However, those who walked slowly for several hours just showed a minimum reduction of mortality risk.<\/p>\n<p>What do these results mean? The most important thing is not just walking, but also how you walk.<\/p>\n<p>Why is a fast walk better?<\/p>\n<p>The answer is in the heart. When you do an energetic walk, your heart rate is higher, your circulation improves and your body burns more calories. Combining these three factors, we:<\/p>\n<p>Strengthen the cardiovascular system.<br \/>\nKeep a healthy weight.<br \/>\nReduce blood pressure.<br \/>\nImprove the mood thanks to the release of endorphins.<\/p>\n<p>Does this mean slow walking is bad? Not, really, it just doesn\u2019t have huge health benefits in the long term since it doesn\u2019t require too much effort.<\/p>\n<p>Examples of slow and fast walk<\/p>\n<p>If you don\u2019t really know if your walk is fast enough, there\u2019s a trick for this: you should be able to speak while walking, but not able to sing without losing your breath. Now let\u2019s see some examples:<\/p>\n<p>Slow walk: walk the dog, move slowly at work, go for a walk with no hurry.<br \/>\nFast walk: going upstairs, walk as if you were in a hurry, making walking part of your daily <a href=\"https:\/\/unionrayo.com\/en\/shower-after-working-effects\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">exercise routine<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Importance of the context<\/p>\n<p>The most interesting thing about the study is that it focused on populations that tend to be less represented in investigations: low income people and Afro American communities in the U.S. Unfortunately, most of the time, these populations have less access to safe places to exercise, that\u2019s why walking is one of the physical activities available for them.<\/p>\n<p>This proves fast walking is a very simple and powerful option that everybody can do, no matter where you live nor what your economic level is.<\/p>\n<p>How can you incorporate fast walking to your routine?<\/p>\n<p>Don\u2019t worry if you want to start doing it and you feel you can\u2019t, because it\u2019s simple and easy to do. In case you don\u2019t know how to start, here are some ideas on how to incorporate fast walking to your daily life:<\/p>\n<p>Get down one bus stop before your destination and walk fast from there to wherever you want to go.<br \/>\nAlways choose stairs over lifts.<br \/>\nSpend 15 minutes after dinner doing an energetic walk around your neighborhood.<br \/>\nDo some active pauses at work: 5 minutes of fast walking every couple of hours.<\/p>\n<p>As you can see, it\u2019s not that difficult to make walking (just 15 minutes) part of your life. What\u2019s more, you will see that the more days you practice fast walking, the more benefits you will have \u2013 according to science, if you do this, it will make you live longer. What are you waiting for? Start fast walking today!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What\u2019s better for your health: fast walk or slow walk? We have always heard that walking is one&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":83175,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[6647,102,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-83174","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fitness","8":"tag-fitness","9":"tag-health","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83174","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83174"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83174\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/83175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}