Forget the 10,000 steps: this is the new goal

I find it so impressive when people consistently hit those 10,000 steps a day. Especially when those people have a full-time office job; where do they find the time to walk so much every day? Hats off if you are one of them. Because yes, those 10,000 steps are a bit of the magic number when it comes to your step counter. To be honest: I absolutely do not reach that every day.

Fortunately, that's completely okay, because according to new research, you are already well on your way with far fewer steps. This research was conducted at the Medical University of Lodz (Poland) by the prestigious American Johns Hopkins University among 226,000 people — quite a number.

And what turned out? 4,000 steps a day is already more than enough to reduce the risk of premature death. That's quite nice, because you can easily reach that amount each day. But is even that a bit too much to ask for you? Then you are also well on your way with 2,300, as that reduces the risk of heart and vascular diseases.

For every 1,000 steps you add on top of that, you reduce the risk of premature death by 15 percent. But don't get ahead of yourself (literally), because if you exceed 20,000 steps, that 15 percent stops. The researchers concluded that the more steps you take, the better it is for you, but everything above 20,000 steps is of little use according to the scientists.