WALKING is proven to be beneficial to one’s physical health, and a new study showed additional benefits for taking extra steps.

A new meta-analysis published in the journal JAMA Network Open revealed that at least 1,000 steps daily can reduce nine percent of an individual’s depression.

According to a CNN report, 33 studies participated by over 96, 000 adults were analyzed by researchers where the data showed that walking for a higher daily step count contributes to the decreasing symptoms of depression.

“Higher daily step counts were associated with fewer depressive symptoms in the general adult population” lead author Bruno Bizzozero-Peroni said in their published journal.

“Compared with fewer than 5000 steps/d, achieving 5,000 or more was associated with reduced depressive symptoms in cross-sectional studies, whereas a daily step count of 7000 or higher was associated with lower risk of depression in prospective studies,” the study added.

Bizzozero-Peroni, a postdoctoral researcher at the Health and Social Research Centre, University of Castilla-La Mancha in Spain, said that their study “provides further evidence that encouraging people to be active, regardless of the type or intensity of the activity, is an effective strategy for preventing depression.”

Dr. Karmel Choi, clinical psychologist and assistant professor at Harvard Medical School said they “typically hear it’s good to get 10,000 steps a day, but here, even 7,000 steps seem to translate to better mental health,”.

Choi clarified that the studies were conducted on the general population and not particularly on people who were clinically diagnosed with depression. This means researchers cannot tell if walking “impacts depression or if people with depression just move less”.

Choi was not part of the research.

Depression (major depressive disorder), as defined by the Mayo Clinic, is a mood disorder that causes a persistent feeling of sadness and loss of interest, affecting an individual’s feelings, thoughts, and behaviors, which can lead to different emotional and physical problems.(LAO)

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