Pick Up The Pace: The Connection Between Walking And Brain Health

The English historian G.M. Trevelyan once said, “I have two doctors: my left leg and my right.” Perhaps there are no truer words to reflect the value of walking for your health and well-being. Even for those who can no longer muster great distances, a daily walk or two is valuable for your cardiovascular system, your mental fitness, and even your cognitive health, among other benefits. For a comprehensive dive into all the health benefits of walking, lace up your sneakers and click here.

Of course, many circumstances can diminish your ability to walk far or steadily. Whether it’s a weakening musculoskeletal system, problems with your auditory or nervous systems, or even the medications you take, your ability to walk, essential both for daily activities and for exercise, may become impaired. And if you notice that your ability to walk appears to be diminishing, that may also be a sign of underlying health problems, as your mobility is often a reflection of your overall health and aging. As researcher and neurologist Dr. Joe Verghese has made clear, “I view slower walking primarily as a marker of the underlying biological processes that contribute to both physical and cognitive aging.” In fact, a declining walking speed may be an easy-to-understand warning sign that a person is at risk for, or in the midst of, cognitive decline.

As one of the lead researchers on a brand new study examining the connection between walking speed and brain health, Dr. Verghese knows what he is talking about. The study, published in Neurology, examined the connection between “super movers” (i.e., those over age 80 whose walking speed is much better than their peers) and cognitive decline. Looking at long-term data from over 4000 older adults, researchers were able to determine that “Supermovers are 50% less likely to develop cognitive decline than their peers who are not super movers.” Finding that muscle health can also equate with cognitive health, Dr. Verghese believes that “persistent speediness may have a protective effect on the brain and the body.” In earlier studies, Dr. Verghese found that super movers also appeared biologically younger than their chronological age and had lower rates of heart disease, depression, and hearing loss. 

Does this mean that you should strive to speed up your walking going forward, in order to lower your risk for cognitive decline? This study did not provide proof that picking up your walking pace will prevent dementia or cognitive decline. Rather, it found an association between mobility and brain health in older age. So it’s unclear whether a strategy to walk more quickly would be a valuable way to lower your risk for dementia. However, there’s no doubt that maintaining your mobility and physical activity is an essential part of healthy aging. So, to the extent that you can continue walking at a brisk pace like you may have when you were younger, or do what you can to strengthen your leg muscles and improve your balance, these efforts will support your goal of healthier physical and cognitive aging. For more on the lessons learned from this study, get ready to stroll and read here and here.

What would be a normal walking pace for you versus a fast walking pace depends on many factors. Your age, health, height, leg length, fitness, and environment all contribute to the pace at which you walk. To try to increase your walking speed, you may want to focus on your posture, relaxing your shoulders, natural arm swings, and quicker, shorter steps. There are also strength training regimens and exercises that can help you improve your stability, balance, and coordination. So, for example, you may want to consider range of motion, obstacle training, balance, and side-stepping exercises to help stabilize and strengthen your stride. You may also want to explore interval walking, where brisk walking patterns are interspersed with a more regular pace. Fortunately for older adults, there’s no age limit on working your muscles and improving your balance so that walking becomes steadier and may even become quicker as you gain strength and confidence. For some additional exercise routines to help you pick up the pace, take a look at these videos from our friends at Yes2Next, which demonstrate how to Strengthen Your Walking Muscles and Build Walking Stamina With An Indoor Walking Workout.