Forget 10,000 Steps a Day—I Tried 'Intuitive Walking' for a Week, and It Delivered on Motivation, Mindset and Mental Clarity

It's pretty hard to escape step-count culture these days. We're constantly reminded of the benefits of walking more (and for good reason), but somewhere along the way, a helpful health metric seems to have become a daily obligation. And I'm sure I'm not alone in feeling unnecessarily guilty when I miss my step goal.

That's why a growing trend of 'intuitive walking' recently caught my attention. Instead of chasing a number, it encourages you to simply walk according to your energy levels, schedule and how your body feels that day. In other words, movement guided by intuition rather than a smartwatch.

I, for one, am guilty of pulling out my walking pad if my watch reminds me I've had an 'easy' day just to clock up a few more steps. And when I'm on a lunchtime walk, I'll always have my Garmin strapped to my wrist to clock my steps. Which is funny because earlier this year, I actually experimented with running without tracking any metrics for two weeks - and it completely changed my relationship with running. So I wondered, what would happen if I applied the same approach to walking and ditched my step goals altogether?

The timing felt apt. While 10,000 steps has become the gold standard for daily movement, recent research published in The Lancet Public Health identified large health benefits - like lowering the risk of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, and dementia from clocking between 7,000 and 8,000 steps.

With this in mind, I decided to stop obsessing over step targets and commit to walking intuitively every day for a week to see what happened. I was keen to find out if intuitive walking is backed by science - and whether we really need step goals in the first place. So, I spoke to a couple of experts, then put it to the test myself. Keep scrolling to see how I got on, and while you're here, check out other first-person walking experiments, including a phone sober walk, posture walking,walking at different times of day, and 'awe walks'.

I Stopped Tracking My Steps For Seven Days And It's The Best Thing I've Done For My Daily Walks

What is intuitive walking?

Intuitive walking is exactly how it sounds - walking simply according to how you feel. There's no step count to hit, no ring to close or streak to protect - just movement based on what your body wants to do that day, whether that's a 20-minute stroll or an hour with no route in mind.

And for anyone who's ever felt guilty, that's a bigger shift than it sounds. According to Dr Tracy King, a chartered clinical psychologist, trackers create a simple reward loop in your brain - you move, the number changes, and your brain registers progress.

"A tracker turns walking into a dopamine dose with visible steps along the reward pathway, as every step becomes evidenced," she says.

While that can be useful for building healthy habits, it can create problems when the numbers start to feel like judgment. As Dr Tracy puts it, the healthiest relationship with a tracker is one "where the data informs the body but does not overrule it."

That's really the idea intuitive walking is getting at - it's about checking in with your own energy and mood before you check your wrist.

Can intuitive walking be just as effective as step goals?

It's the obvious worry; if I stop tracking, will I lose the benefits?

Not necessarily, explains Dr Suzanne Hackenmiller, Chief Medical Advisor at AllTrails.

"Tracking can be a really useful tool for accountability, and if it works for you, great. But it's not for everyone, and stepping away from it doesn't mean you'll miss out," she says. "When we get too obsessed with the numbers, we can stop listening to our own bodies."

The key to effective movement is consistency, says Dr Hackenmiller. "Even a short walk outside can improve mood, focus and help to reduce stress. The best routine is simply the one you'll actually stick to."

One thing that Dr King said that struck a chord was that taking a break from trackers and counting steps can actually reduce cognitive load. "Constant measurement asks the brain to keep checking, comparing and evaluating," she explains.

Which is ironic, really. Many of us use a walk to act as a reset during the working day, or decompress after a busy day, but if you're constantly checking your step count, how much are you actually letting your brain switch off?

So, if anything, you might actually gain something from stepping away from the numbers - the ability to trust your own judgement.

What happened when I tried intuitive walking

Days one to three

Before I started, Dr King suggested treating intuitive walking as a series of small experiments rather than an all-or-nothing approach. She told me that some of her clients said that if they don’t have their device or it’s run out of battery, they don’t see the point of exercising. This really resonated with me, as it's the mindset I tend to have - it's rare that I take my watch off.

Instead of ditching technology altogether, I took Dr King's advice and decided not to go completely cold turkey. On day one, I kept my Garmin on, but made a conscious effort not to check my step count.

I failed miserably on the first walk. Less than ten minutes in, I found myself glancing at my wrist to see how many steps I'd clocked. I realised it was out of habit more than anything else.

After that first walk, I decided that if intuitive walking was going to work properly, I needed to fully commit to it and head out without any data to distract me. Otherwise, I wasn't really testing anything.

I won't lie, the first time I walked without my watch, I had to shut that niggling voice in my head that said it was a waste of exercise if I wasn't tracking it. And even reminding myself of that was enough of a reason to tell me that I was part of the step-count culture that had become socially ingrained in us.

My original plan was to take off my watch every time I went for a walk and then put it back on afterwards. But after that first watch-free walk, I realised that wasn't really going to work. I usually head out for a couple of walks a day, and if I put my Garmin back on in between, I'd still have an idea whether I was on track to hit my daily step target.

Intuitive walking isn't about one walk - it's about letting go of the pressure to hit a daily step target. If I put my Garmin back on, I'd still know whether I was on track for the day, so I left it off, and that's when the mental shift started to happen.

Days four - seven

By the second half of the week, I was genuinely surprised at how freeing it felt heading out without any goals or targets in mind. I could completely switch off from reality and the pressure of trying to squeeze enough movement into my day.

What I also didn't expect was how unbothered I felt not knowing how far I'd walked. I'm a bit of a stickler for routine, but one thing I did was listen to my body each day. There were a couple of days when I hadn't slept well, and I felt more tired than usual. On these days I walked less. And the best thing? I didn't feel guilty.

Without a watch, I found myself being more present on my daily walks and paying more attention to what was around me. Interestingly, a Stanford University study found that people who spent 90 minutes walking in nature reported less rumination - the repetitive negative thought patterns that can fuel stress - than those who walked in urban settings. It was a reminder that there's more to walks than the number of steps it racks up.

By the end of the week, I hadn't become anti-step count. In fact, I was missing my watch if I'm honest. But the experiment did make me realise just how often I'd been walking for the number, rather than the enjoyment of it. Taking away the step count didn't make me move any less; if anything, it helped me realise that a walk still counts, even if I don't have the data to prove it.

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