A few years ago, a new phenomenon appeared and instantly became wildly popular: counting daily steps with personal fitness devices like the Fitbit – and now, with this step-counting habit firmly embedded in our society, people want to know if there’s a connection between their daily steps and the symptoms of depression.
Decades of evidence show the positive effect of physical activity on depressive symptoms. In fact, exercise and activity are core parts of almost every treatment plan for depression. We’ve published several articles on the topic, including these three:
Does Exercise Help Depression?
Lifestyle and Depression: Helpful Habits and Protective Factors
Physical Activity and Depression Among Older Adults
Those articles make the case for exercise and activity as valid and effective auxiliary/complementary treatments for depression. However, they don’t address the relationship between daily steps and depression, and until recently, no studies existed on the connection between daily steps and depression. In December 2024, a group of researchers published a paper that rectifies that situation:
Daily Step Count and Depression in Adults: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis
In this article, we’ll review the results of that study, with the goal of learning how many daily steps are associated with reducing symptoms of depression.
Walking for Health and Wellbeing: Daily Steps and Depression
For people who have a health scare, doctors often suggest a change in lifestyle habits, with exercise at the top of the list.
And for people new to exercise, or people returning to exercise and activity after years of sedentary behavior, walking is widely accepted as one of the best – pardon the pun – first steps to take when returning to or creating an active lifestyle.
The same is true for people with depression. In addition to therapy and medication, lifestyle changes like exercise is often at the top of the list. And for people who’ve lived a sedentary lifestyle, walking is one of the best ways to get up and get moving. It’s easy, it’s free, and anyone can take a walk almost anywhere at any time, with some exceptions.
That’s one reason counting daily steps caught on so quickly. It gave people an easy, hassle-free way to track their activity. First, all you had to do was wear a Fitbit. Now all you need to do is activate an app on your smartphone, and you’re instantly counting steps.
That’s what made this study possible, as well: the availability of that step data from various sources. Researchers used information collected from thirty-six studies on daily steps and depression, with records for 96,173 adults aged 18 years or older from 13 countries across Asia, Europe, North America, Oceania, and South America.
Here’s the research question they explored:
Are objectively measured daily steps associated with depression in adulthood?
Let’s take a look at what they found.
Daily Steps and Depression: How Many Steps Does It Take?
The short answer: 7,500 or more steps per day – but that’s not all. Smaller increases can help, too.
We’ll explain.
After analyzing the data, researchers identified four categories of activity within the study sample:
- Highly active people took 10,000+ steps per day
- Somewhat active people took 7,500-9,999 steps per day
- Low activity people took 5,000-7,499 steps per day
- Sedentary people took 4,999 steps or less each day
We can sum up the big picture results in a simple sentence:
Daily steps were inversely correlated with depressive symptoms.
In other words:
More daily steps meant fewer symptoms of depression.
Here’s the breakdown, which compares highly active people (10k steps pr day or more) with sedentary people (5k steps per day or fewer):
- High vs. Sedentary: People who took 10,000+ steps per day reported significantly lower prevalence of depressive symptoms, compared to people who took 4,999 steps of less.
- Somewhat active vs. Sedentary: People who took 7500-9999 steps per day also recorded significantly lower prevalence of depressive symptoms, compared to people who took 4,999 daily steps or less.
- Low activity vs. Sedentary: people who took 5000-7499 steps per day reported moderately lower prevalence of depressive symptoms compared to people who took 5,000 daily steps or less.
In addition, researchers found:
- People who took 7,000 or more daily steps showed reduced risk of depression, compared to people who took less than 7,000 daily steps.
- Increasing daily steps by at least 1000 steps per day was associated with lower depression risk, compared to not increasing steps at all.
We’ll discuss these results below.
How This New Data Helps
To put daily steps in perspective, it takes about 2,250 steps to walk a mile. Therefore, people in the high activity group walk an average of four miles a day or more, somewhat active people walk around three miles a day, low activity people walk about two miles a day, and sedentary people walk two miles a day or less.
To find out how many steps it takes to walk a mile based on height and pace, use this online step calculator.
Now, back to the study:
Keep in mind that the researchers only counted steps.
Walking is not the only way to get exercise, which is a limitation of the study. However, the data are valid nevertheless. And, from our point of view, the most important aspect of the study appears in the last bullet point: adding 1,000 steps a day reduced depression risk.
That’s crucial because what it means is that if you’re sedentary now, you don’t have to instantly become highly active. It’s not necessary to go from no steps to 10,000 steps or more, or to go from no miles a day to over four miles a day.
According to the data, adding 1,000 steps a day works.
That’s less than half a mile.
We know most people – barring physical disability – can manage that. This study puts objective evidence behind the sayings something is better than nothing and a little is better than none and confirms reassurances that it’s okay to start where you are and build slowly..
We’ll close this article with the final words from the study authors:
“Our results showed significant associations between higher numbers of daily steps and fewer depressive symptoms as well as lower prevalence and risk of depression in the general adult population.”
That’s a big deal. You can help reduce your symptoms of depression – in combination with your treatment plan – one step at a time. You start by simply taking a walk.