Fitness
5 ways to get more out of every step on the path to better health
Walking is one of the most popular forms of exercise. It costs nothing, can be done almost anywhere and provides numerous health benefits.
It decreases the risk and severity of chronic illnesses such as heart disease, diabetes and dementia, improves mental health, sleep and longevity and promotes healthy aging.
What’s more, there are benefits to walking no matter what level you’re at, says Dr. Amanda Paluch, an assistant professor of kinesiology at the University of Massachusetts School of Public Health and Health Sciences in Amherst.
That’s because any type of physical activity is better than none, she notes. Walking accrues benefits even at its most basic level — just putting one foot in front of the other and taking a turn around the block, through a park or down a trail.
Research suggests the more steps a person takes each day, the more they reduce their risk of dying. But that benefit maxes out between 6,000 and 8,000 steps per day for people 60 and older and between 8,000 and 10,000 steps per day for people younger than 60.
For those who are willing and able, there are ways to boost the benefits of walking to reap even more rewards. Here are five simple ways to put more pep in your steps:
Nordic walking to greater fitness
Nordic walking, created to help cross-country skiers train during the summer, involves using a set of specially designed poles that work the muscles in the upper body. It has been shown to improve resting heart rate and blood pressure and to increase exercise capacity and oxygen consumption. It’s increasingly being suggested as a form of physical activity for older adults.
“The science behind it is really compelling,” says Dr. Keith Diaz, an associate professor at Columbia University’s department of medicine in New York City. “You’re engaging more muscles and using your upper body more, so you burn more calories than you do with regular walking.”
The added intensity is what benefits cardiovascular health, Paluch says. “You’re getting your heart rate up and also improving your fitness level, which is a major contributor to good health.”
And, she says, “it can be fun just to have a different way of walking.”
Add lunges
Research suggests lunges can also add health benefits to a walk.
“As we age, physical function can decline,” Diaz says. “Lunge-walking is a means to maintain, if not improve, muscular function.”
Lunges can be incorporated into all or even just some of the steps on a walk or can be done in intervals along the way, Paluch says. Other simple exercises, such as calf lifts, can be added as well as other muscle-strengthening or resistance training activities. These can be done before, during or after the walk.
“Work some muscles that are different from the ones you use walking,” Paluch says. “Including even 10 minutes of resistance either before or after a walk can maximize the health benefits of walking. These can be simple activities that don’t take a lot of time, such as situps or modified pushups.”
Lifting light weights can also add benefits, but Paluch does not recommend carrying weights while walking because it can increase the risk of injury. “Using weights right after a walk would be best, because the body is already warmed up,” she says.
Federal physical activity guidelines recommend adults, especially those 65 and older who are able, incorporate muscle-strengthening activities into their physical activity regimen at least two days a week. This is in addition to at least 150 minutes per week of moderately intense physical activity or 75 minutes of vigorous physical activity.
Pick up the pace
While walking at any pace is better than not walking at all, studies show a faster, more intense pace incurs greater cardiorespiratory fitness and bigger reductions in the risk for chronic illness.
“Your pace is a big determinant of how much health benefit you get from walking,” Diaz explains. “Increasing pace is the easiest thing to do.”
Picking up speed can be done in intervals of any duration as you’re walking, Paluch adds.
“Even doing it for just 20 seconds can have a benefit. It really depends on where you’re starting from,” she says.
Put the phone away
“Don’t be on a screen while you’re walking,” Diaz says. “That may sound obvious, but in this day and age, that’s what a lot of people do.”
Taking a break from digital devices allows people to de-stress more fully, he says. “Walking itself is a mood booster, but is the mood boost because you’re walking or because you took a screen break?”
Whether walking alone in silence or talking with a friend, there are mental health gains to taking a break from screens and other work activities, Paluch points out. “Taking time for ourselves can be incredibly beneficial.”
Bring a friend
Research shows group outdoor health walks can mitigate social isolation and improve social well-being, which has been linked to better health and longevity. Studies have also found strong social connections help people get and stay active.
“Walking can be a social activity as well as a physical activity,” Diaz says.
And while there’s no evidence that talking while walking burns extra calories, he adds, there is research suggesting that genuine laughter increases energy expenditure by up to 20 percent.
You may not see the pounds falling off, Diaz says, but you’ll have a good time trying.
Fitness
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While exercise is known to improve memory, scientists have mostly studied this effect by using behavioral tests or brain imaging methods like MRIs, says Michelle Voss, PhD, one of the study’s authors, a professor, and the director of the Health, Brain, and Cognitive Lab at the University of Iowa in Iowa City.
But she says these approaches can’t precisely identify where “ripples” originate, particularly in the deep brain structures like the hippocampus, a part of the brain strongly connected to memory and learning, she says.
The current study, published in Brain Communications, recorded electrical activity directly, using surgically implanted (intracranial) electrodes. “This allowed us to observe how exercise changes the brain’s memory circuits in real time,” Dr. Voss says.
20-Minute Bursts of Exercise Increase Brain Ripples
The participants performed a 5-minute warm-up and then rode a stationary bike for 20 minutes at a pace they could maintain. Researchers recorded their brain activity before and after the biking session.
The electrodes showed an increased rate of so-called sharp-wave ripples from the hippocampus and connections with cortical regions of the brain, which are involved in learning and memory.
“Sharp-wave ripples have long been known from animal studies to play a central role in memory,” Voss says, adding that recent studies using intracranial recordings in humans also support the importance of ripples for human memory.
“Our findings are the first to show that exercise can modulate these ripple signals in the human brain,” she says.
Researchers also observed that larger increases in heart rate during exercise were associated with larger changes in ripple activity in cortical networks, Voss adds.
What’s Already Known About Exercise, Memory, and Learning
Exercise helps build connections between neurons, which deepens and strengthens brain networks, Franssen says.
Physical activity also improves metabolism, which improves insulin sensitivity, helping blood sugar regulation and giving the brain a “more stable and reliable supply of fuel,” Dr. Perlmutter says.
“This is critically important because the brain is an energy-intensive organ, consuming roughly 20 percent of the body’s energy despite representing only a small fraction of body weight,” he adds.
The Research Has Limitations
Voss says researchers were careful to “exclude signals that contained epileptic activity. However, of course, we can’t statistically control for the accumulated effects of having epilepsy on the brain.”
The exercise-brain ripple patterns observed in the current study also closely match those observed in healthy adults using noninvasive brain imaging, such as MRI, she added.
“That convergence across very different methods is one of the strongest indicators that the effects are not specific to epilepsy, but reflect a more general human brain response to exercise,” Voss said.
Researchers also didn’t directly test memory performance, Voss notes. “While hippocampal ripples are strongly linked to memory processing in decades of neuroscience research, the next step will be to measure how exercise-related changes in ripples relate to memory performance in the same individuals.”
Future studies should also compare exercise with other everyday activities, such as sitting quietly or light movement, to determine how specific these effects are to aerobic exercise at the intensity that was studied, she says.
Satisfy Your Brain’s Exercise Craving
It’s never too early or too late to start exercising for brain health, Franssen says.
People of any age, from grade-school children to people in their nineties, can benefit from increased physical activity, Perlmutter says. “My recommendation is to consider taking advantage of the connection between physical activity and brain health across the entire range of human aging.”
Any type of exercise is great, Franssen says, but especially “repetitive behaviors,” like swimming, jogging, and walking.
“Sometimes we let the hugeness of putting in a huge fitness routine get in our way,” she says. “Having a little exercise snack every so often is also very important to improving cognition.”
Increasing our level of physical fitness leads to a bigger release of brain-boosting proteins following one session of exercise, a new study led by a UCL researcher has found.
The study, published in Brain Research, took a group of inactive unfit participants through a 12-week training programme of cycling three times per week and made them fitter. Researchers found as their fitness increased, so did the amount of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) released following exercise, resulting in improved brain function.
Just 15 minutes of moderate to vigorous aerobic exercise releases BDNF, a brain protein which is known to support the formation of new neurons and new synapses (connections between brain cells), and maintains the health of existing neurons. This is the first study to show that for unfit people, just 12 weeks of consistent training can boost the brain’s response to a single 15-minute workout.
The study, led by Dr Flaminia Ronca (UCL Surgery & Interventional Science, and the Institute of Sport, Exercise and Health), involved 30 participants – 23 male and seven female – taking part in the 12-week programme. To assess fitness levels throughout the programme, participants completed VO2max tests every six weeks, which measures the maximum rate of oxygen your body can consume and use during intense exercise.
BDNF levels were measured pre- and post-VO2max testing, alongside a series of cognitive and memory tests, while also measuring changes in brain activity in the prefrontal cortex – where executive functions such as decision-making, emotion regulation, attention and impulsivity are controlled.
By the final week of the trial, results showed that baseline levels of BDNF did not change, but participants did show a larger spike of BDNF following intense exercise, compared to how their brains responded to intense exercise before the 12-week programme. This was linked to improvements in VO2max (aerobic fitness).
Higher overall BDNF levels and stronger exercise-induced increases were also associated with changes in activity across key areas of the prefrontal cortex during attention and inhibition tasks, though not during memory tasks.
Overall, the results showed that increasing physical fitness can enhance the brain’s ability to produce BDNF in response to acute bouts of exercise, which can have a strong positive influence on neural activity.
Lead author Dr Flaminia Ronca said: “We’ve known for a while that exercise is good for our brain, but the mechanisms through which this occurs are still being disentangled. The most exciting finding from our study is that if we become fitter, our brains benefit even more from a single session of exercise, and this can change in only six weeks.”
Notes to editors:
For more information or to speak to the researchers involved, please contact: Tom Cramp, UCL Media Relations , T: +447586 711698, E: [email protected]
The research paper: ‘BDNF relates to prefrontal cortex activity in the context of physical exercise’, Flaminia Ronca, Cian Xu, Ellen Kong, Dennis Chan, Antonia Hamilton, Giampietro Schiavo, Ilias Tachtsidis, Paola Pinti, Benjamin Tari, Tom Gurney, Paul W. Burgess, is published in Brain Research, March 2026,
About UCL (University College London)
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Since 1826, we have championed independent thought by attracting and nurturing the world’s best minds. Our community of more than 50,000 students from 150 countries and over 16,000 staff pursues academic excellence, breaks boundaries and makes a positive impact on real world problems.
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Journal
Brain Research
DOI
10.1016/j.brainres.2026.150253
Method of Research
Experimental study
Subject of Research
People
Article Title
BDNF relates to prefrontal cortex activity in the context of physical exercise
Article Publication Date
4-Mar-2026
Media Contact
Tom Cramp
University College London
[email protected]
Journal
Brain Research
DOI
10.1016/j.brainres.2026.150253
Journal
Brain Research
DOI
10.1016/j.brainres.2026.150253
Method of Research
Experimental study
Subject of Research
People
Article Title
BDNF relates to prefrontal cortex activity in the context of physical exercise
Article Publication Date
4-Mar-2026
Tags
/Health and medicine/Human health/Physical exercise
bu içeriği en az 2000 kelime olacak şekilde ve alt başlıklar ve madde içermiyecek şekilde ünlü bir science magazine için İngilizce olarak yeniden yaz. Teknik açıklamalar içersin ve viral olacak şekilde İngilizce yaz. Haber dışında başka bir şey içermesin. Haber içerisinde en az 12 paragraf ve her bir paragrafta da en az 50 kelime olsun. Cevapta sadece haber olsun. Ayrıca haberi yazdıktan sonra içerikten yararlanarak aşağıdaki başlıkların bilgisi var ise haberin altında doldur. Eğer yoksa bilgisi ilgili kısmı yazma.:
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Keywords
Tags: 12-week cycling training program benefitsbrain plasticity and physical fitnessbrain-derived neurotrophic factor after exerciseeffects of aerobic exercise on BDNFexercise and neuron healthexercise-induced neurogenesisfitness level impact on brain proteinsfitness training for cognitive improvementimproving brain function through fitnessmoderate to vigorous aerobic exercise effectsphysical fitness and brain healthVO2max and brain function correlation
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