A study published in Scientific Reports on October 11, 2026, compared years of Fitbit step counts tracked on the wrists of 3,093 adults in the United States with scores from attention tests.1 The data originates from the U.S. National Institutes of Health's All of Us program and spans a 14-year period between 2009 and 2023. Participants ranged in age from 18 to 93 years old.2

Groups that walked more achieved higher scores on attention tests, though the difference was small. The study was not structured in a way that could independently prove walking enhances attention; experiments directly testing that question extend to a laboratory treadmill and a park in Michigan.

What is in this article?
  • We explain how three step groups from Fitbit records differed in attention test performance.
  • We report on which test nine-year-old children improved on and which they remained stagnant in after walking on a treadmill.
  • We chart how walking the same distance in a park versus on a main street differently affected a memory test.
  • We detail why a 2026 meta-analysis remained cautious regarding brief movement breaks.

How do wrist-worn counters and attention tests relate?

Psychiatrist Olaoluwa Okusaga and his team at Baylor College of Medicine divided participants into three groups based on 14 years of step records. The daily averages were 5,108, 8,875, and 14,161 steps.1 Cognitive tests were administered in a single round starting in September 2023. One of the four tasks was the Grad-CPT, which measures sustained attention. In this test, city and mountain photographs slowly transition into one another on a screen every 800 milliseconds. The participant presses a key for every city image and withholds their hand for mountain images, which comprise only 10 percent of the pictures.3 Maintaining this continuous attention without missing infrequent mountains during a monotonous, multi-minute flow requires unbroken focus.

After accounting for age, education, income, marital status, and birthplace, the sustained attention score of the middle group was 1.76 points higher than the least active group, while the most active group scored 2.17 points higher.2 For every 1,000-step increase in daily steps, the Grad-CPT score rose by 0.31. In the Flanker test, which measures the ability to see an arrow in the center of the screen without being misled by adjacent opposing arrows, the increase was 0.26 points. No significant difference was found among the groups in a facial expression recognition test.4

Okusaga explicitly states that the differences are small and adds that the study was not designed to establish a daily step target.2

What happens during twenty minutes on a treadmill?

One of the most cited experiments measuring the impact of a single walk comes from the University of Illinois. In 2009, Charles Hillman's team invited 20 children with a mean age of 9.5 to the laboratory on two separate days.5 On one day, the children sat and rested for 20 minutes. On the other day, they spent the same duration walking on a treadmill at 60 percent of their estimated maximum heart rate. The order of the days was counterbalanced across children.

Tests began after heart rates returned close to resting levels, an average of 25 minutes post-walk. In the Flanker test, children reported the direction of the center arrow while four flanking arrows pointed in the same or opposite directions. On the walking day, they made fewer errors, particularly during trials with opposite arrows that caused cognitive conflict. Response speeds, however, remained unchanged. Electrodes placed on the scalp recorded that the P3 brain wave, which is associated with attentional allocation, increased in amplitude after walking.5

Scores also increased in the reading section of a standard achievement test, while spelling and arithmetic showed no differences.5

Notes and Sources

  1. Okusaga, O. O., Lin, Y.-S., & Atkinson, E. (2026). "Physical activity and blood pressure as predictors of cognitive function in the All of Us Research Program". Scientific Reports. doi:10.1038/s41598-026-74379-6 ↩
  2. Öz, E. (October 19, 2026). "How Many Steps a Day Does It Take to Sharpen Your Attention? A 14-Year Study Hints at The Range". ScienceAlert, interview with Olaoluwa Okusaga. sciencealert.com ↩
  3. Esterman, M., Noonan, S. K., Rosenberg, M., & DeGutis, J. (2013). "In the zone or zoning out? Tracking behavioral and neural fluctuations during sustained attention". Cerebral Cortex, 23(11), 2712-2723. doi:10.1093/cercor/bhs261 ↩
  4. News-Medical (October 14, 2026). "People who walk more each day tend to score better on several brain tests". news-medical.net ↩
  5. Hillman, C. H., Pontifex, M. B., Raine, L. B., Castelli, D. M., Hall, E. E., & Kramer, A. F. (2009). "The effect of acute treadmill walking on cognitive control and academic achievement in preadolescent children". Neuroscience, 159(3), 1044-1054. doi:10.1016/j.neuroscience.2009.01.057 ↩
  6. Berman, M. G., Jonides, J., & Kaplan, S. (2008). "The cognitive benefits of interacting with nature". Psychological Science, 19(12), 1207-1212. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.02225.x ↩
  7. Zhuang, M., Yin, M., Liu, Z., et al. (2026). "Acute cognitive effects of interruptions to prolonged sitting with brief standing or physical activity breaks: a systematic review and three-level meta-analysis". International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity. doi:10.1186/s12966-026-01953-6 ↩
  8. Zhong, Z., & Zhang, Z. (2026). "Effects of Physical Activity Interventions on Attention in Adults: A Comprehensive Meta-Analysis". Developmental Neuropsychology. doi:10.1080/87565641.2026.2746324 ↩

This article is for informational purposes and does not constitute medical advice.