As the weather cools down and the air becomes frosty, you may hesitate to head outside for your daily walk, or you may decide that a few quick walks are more tolerable than a long and chilly stroll. But new research published in the Annals of Internal Medicine may encourage you to rethink this walking strategy. According to this study, the longer walk may be the path to better health and lower premature mortality, especially if you are relatively sedentary and inactive (in which case, you’d be in good company, with estimates of about 31% of the world’s adult population considered inactive). Pushing up that daily step count by going on one longer walk can better train your body to grab some of the health benefits from a walk, such as heart regulation, improving blood circulation, lowering blood pressure, and maintaining glucose control. The duration and consistency of your walking seem to matter, as in this study (with the average participant being age 62 in the group of 34,000 participants), those who regularly walked 15 minutes or longer were 80% less likely to die from any cause and nearly 70% less likely to develop cardiovascular disease over 10 years, compared to walkers who accumulated their daily steps in brief 5 minute bursts or less. While this study showed a correlation and not causation, it does suggest that the daily duration of your walk may be a more important factor than total daily step count when considering health benefits from walking.

Speaking of daily step count, another recent study puts into question whether you really need to obsess over the daily step number you see on your tracker. According to a new study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, it doesn’t take that many steps, or that many long walks per week, to lower your risk of cardiovascular disease or mortality, as long as you get a few good walks in each week. This study of over 13,000 healthy older women (average age of 72) showed that over 10 years, the women who walked 4000 steps one or two days a week were able to reduce their cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk compared to women who took fewer steps. Those who walked 4000 steps one or two days a week lowered their CVD risk by 27% and their mortality risk by 26% compared to those older women who never hit 4000 steps a day during the week. Those who were able to push that to 4000 steps on a third day of the week were able to lower their mortality risk by 40%. The bottom line from this study appears to be that it’s the total amount of steps in the week you accrue rather than your daily step count that seems most associated with better health outcomes. In essence, you can bunch your steps into a couple of days a week and achieve positive health benefits, rather than obsessing that you didn’t reach your 10,000 steps that day. So stop worrying about 10,000 or even 8,000 steps- set your sights to a lower, more achievable number and read more here.

And as we gear up for the coming holidays, you may want to jump on board the biggest group walking day of the year. Did you know that more people gather together to walk or run for the annual Thanksgiving “TurkeyTrot” than on any other day of the year? A usual Turkey Trot is 5 Kilometers, which is 3.1 miles (or about 6200 steps). These gatherings are often multi-generational and have as many walkers as they do runners. To find out how you can participate in your area, put aside the pumpkin pie and look here.