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20 minutes daily walk vs Rs 10 lakh home gym: Cardiologist explains what is more important for your heart
ET Online | September 10, 2025 5:20 PM CST

Synopsis

Cardiologist Dr. Shailesh Singh advocates for daily 20-minute walks, highlighting their cumulative benefits for heart health, fitness, and longevity. He emphasises consistency, suggesting tracking walks and reframing them as a privilege. Dr. Singh contrasts simple habits with costly wellness trends, urging people to prioritise movement over screen time for significant health improvements.

Cardiologist explains why daily walking is extremely beneficial for your health. (Istock)
Forget expensive gyms, protein powders, and fitness fads — a simple 20-minute walk might be the biggest investment you can make in your health. A cardiologist, Dr Shailesh Singh, has gone viral for breaking down the math behind walking daily, explaining how tiny, consistent efforts compound over time into a stronger heart, better fitness, and a longer life. His posts are packed with practical hacks and blunt reminders that health doesn’t need to be complicated or costly.

He explained that while one short walk may seem pointless, doing it every day creates exponential benefits. To make the habit stick, he suggested tracking walks on a calendar and marking them with an X. Seeing the streak build, he said, creates a sense of progress that your brain naturally doesn’t want to break.

He also called out how people spend hours on social media and OTT platforms, and endless online arguments, yet claim they don’t have time to move. Swapping even 30 minutes of that screen time for a walk, cooking one real meal, or getting to bed before midnight, he noted, could do far more for your heart than likes or views ever will.


Walking hacks?

One of his favourite tricks is what he calls a “commitment device.” Schedule a walk with someone, he said, because cancelling will feel awkward — but going requires no effort. This simple psychological shift makes the good choice easier and the bad one harder.

He also urged people to change their perspective: stop saying “I have to walk” and start saying “I get to walk.” Millions of people can’t, he reminded, and seeing movement as a privilege rather than a chore rewires behaviour.


Walking daily will have more health benefits

In another tweet, he compared health to a compound interest account. A walk today may feel like a tiny deposit, but repeated daily, it turns into life-changing wealth for your body. Skip a day and it’s just a small withdrawal, but keep doing it and the balance grows. His message was clear: one walk changes nothing, but 365 will transform everything.

According to him, even if you have a Rs 10 lakh home gym and don't work out, then it is no match for an uncle who simply climbs four floors daily, and expensive supplements can’t beat the grandmother who eats dal-chawal. For him, overcomplicating health is just procrastination in fancy clothing.




Studies say about walking benefits on the heart

Science agrees with him. As per the National Library of Medicine, studies show that even small increases in daily walking improve cardiovascular health compared to doing nothing. Short-term benefits include better fitness, body composition, blood pressure, and cholesterol levels. Over the long term, walking lowers the risk of coronary heart disease, major heart events, and even premature death. Experts recommend at least 150 minutes of walking per week, assuring that the risk of injury is minimal while the rewards are significant.
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