What’s Better: Short Walks Vs. One Long Walk? Science Has Revealed The Answer
Daily movement is important. We know that from robust research that shows it's an essential habit for physical resilience, cognitive performance, and longevity. Your body is made to move, and its rewards are plentiful.
For many of us, getting in steps means fitting it in wherever we can—walking to the subway, pacing during phone calls, taking a quick walk between meetings. Certainly I often count myself in that group.
However, a new study suggests that longer walks may offer more perks than these short bursts of micro movements. Here’s what the research found.
Short vs. long walks: What new research shows
A large population-based study published in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine analyzed health data from UK Biobank, focusing on 33,560 adults who walked fewer than 8,000 steps per day.
Researchers wanted to know whether step patterns—not just total steps—affected long-term health outcomes. Participants averaged about 5,165 steps per day and were grouped by how long their typical walking sessions lasted:
- Under 5 minutes
- 5 to under 10 minutes
- 10 to under 15 minutes
- 15 minutes or longer
Then researchers followed them for nearly a decade, tracking deaths from all causes and rates of cardiovascular disease.
Related read: This many steps per day is linked to lower cancer risk
The key finding: Longer walks, lower risk
Across the board, longer, uninterrupted walking sessions were associated with significantly better health outcomes.
- People who accumulated most of their steps in bouts shorter than five minutes had the highest risk of early death.
- As walking sessions lengthened, that risk dropped sharply. Risk of early death dropped by more than half for those walking in 5- to 10-minute bouts, and even further for those walking 10 minutes or more at a time.
- Cardiovascular disease risk steadily declined as walking sessions grew longer, with the lowest risk seen in people who regularly walked at least 15 minutes without stopping.
Importantly, these benefits appeared independent of total daily step count.
In other words, two people could walk the same number of steps, but the one who grouped them into longer walks tended to fare better over time.
Why longer walks may be more protective
Researchers didn’t directly measure mechanisms, but the physiology is well understood.
Sustained walking raises heart rate for longer stretches, improves blood vessel function, and encourages better glucose regulation1 and fat metabolism. It also gives the cardiovascular system enough time to adapt and respond—something brief, stop-and-start movement may not fully trigger.
Short bursts of activity still count as movement, but they may not consistently cross the threshold needed for deeper cardiometabolic benefits.
What this means for you & your habits
This research doesn’t mean short walks are useless. Any movement is still better than none. But if most of your steps currently come from scattered, incidental activity, this study suggests a simple upgrade: Aim for at least one intentional walk per day lasting at least 15 minutes.
The good news is that 15 minutes of walking is usually do-able, even for the most hectic of schedules. But it’s important to treat this as a non-negotiable, not optional.
While walking think about your speed: Walk at a pace that gently raises your heart rate but still allows conversation. In fact, one study found that an increase of just 14 steps per minute (about a 10–15% boost in cadence) was enough to improve physical performance and stamina.
The takeaway
If you’re choosing between squeezing in lots of tiny walks or committing to one longer stretch, science now favors the latter. Of course, whatever movement you can get in is valuable. But if you can carve out at least 15 minutes a day for a nice walk, you’ll likely start to feel the difference.
The next habit to tackle? Swapping sitting for stretching.