Research

Hormonal

Walking 10,000 steps per day or more for 12 weeks significantly lowers systolic and diastolic blood pressure and reduces sympathetic nerve activity in patients with mild essential hypertension, irrespective of exercise intensity or duration.

If you have mild high blood pressure, aim to walk at least 10,000 steps every day for 12 weeks. You do not need to walk fast or for long periods at a time; just hit the step count. This approach has been shown to lower blood pressure and reduce stress on your heart's nervous system, even if your weight or cholesterol doesn't change immediately.

ModerateSupportsMEDIUM confidence
Our results indicate that walking 10,000 steps/days or more, irrespective of exercise intensity or duration, is effective in lowering blood pressure, increasing exercise capacity, and reducing sympathetic nerve activity in hypertensive patients.
Masataka Iwane et al. · Hypertension Research · 2000

Why this rating

Observational cohort study with a control group, but lacks randomization and has a high dropout rate (from 730 to 83 completers).

Source

Walking 10,000 Steps/Day or More Reduces Blood Pressure and Sympathetic Nerve Activity in Mild Essential Hypertension.

Masataka Iwane et al. · Hypertension Research · 2000

DOI 10.1291/hypres.23.573

cohort · n=730Cited 214×
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DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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