If you’ve read our posts and put yourself on a path toward healthier aging, then by now you’ve likely worn out a pedometer or 2 or have needed to replace your walking shoes: Because as you know, walking is one of the easiest and most effective ways to keep your body healthy and your mind humming along. Whether you’re up for a long walk through nature or a short after-dinner stroll, there’s more evidence than ever that the time you invest in moving your legs can bring about enormous rewards for your health and well-being.

So let’s start with the stroll. Intuitively you may realize that an after-dinner walk around the block makes you digest better and feel more comfortable into the evening. Well, new research reveals that a light after-dinner stroll of perhaps only 5 minutes can have a significant impact on your blood sugar levels. According to researchers, taking a short walk after a meal (within 60-90 minutes) means that your moving muscles can soak up some of the excess glucose coursing through your body and can moderate blood sugar levels so you won’t experience a sharp fluctuation. This is an easy-to-accomplish exercise that can be undertaken virtually anywhere and can really make a difference in comparison to sitting down after a meal or plopping in front of the television. And even those of us who are not monitoring our blood sugar levels due to diabetes or pre-diabetes can still benefit from a reduced glucose spike after a meal: Experts suggest that lowering your glucose level will lead to less hunger before your next meal, less inflammation in your body and overall slower aging. So stand up, step out and read more here.

But if you’re up for a longer walk, then counting your steps all the way to 10,000 might get you a significant reduction in your risk of dementia. According to a new study in JAMA Network Neurology, the more steps you accrue in a day, and the more intensity connected to those steps, the more you can reduce your risk of dementia. Using data from thousands of UK Biobank participants (with a mean age of 61.1 years) researchers were able to observe over a seven-year period that even as few as 3800 steps a day (about 1 ½ miles) could reduce your risk of dementia by 25%. Moreover, when those steps were purposeful (say walking 40 steps/minute) rather than a slow saunter, this faster pace increased the association of the walk with a reduced risk of dementia. Reaching up to 9800 steps a day was found to reduce the risk of dementia by 50% (the benefit appears to drop off after that number of steps). Again, your step intensity matters in these longer walks if you want the benefit of dementia risk reduction. In fact, experts suggest your goal is to become “breathless:” Not actually gasping for air, but having difficulty speaking to your walking partner as you go forward.

Of course to walk that many steps in a day you need to be comfortable and safe. Regarding comfort, there are always new recommendations for the latest and most comfortable walking shoes (ladies, look here). When it comes to safety, you want comfortable shoes, to start slow and build (maybe don’t try for 10,000 steps on your first outing!), a well-chosen route, and to make sure your muscles are warmed up and ready. And to maximize the value of your daily walk, you may also want to add some weights or spark the energy level by interspersing a few other exercises. To find out more, consider some squats to break it up, and read more here.