The short answer: there is almost no research on walking boredom itself, but a few of the usual tips have evidence behind them: music, walking with other people, and game-style tracking. Others, such as varying your route or taking photos, are untested ideas. Several of the earlier page's specifics, including "doubled walking time" with audiobooks and a 120 to 130 BPM playlist rule, had no source.
| Idea | What research says |
|---|---|
| Music | Small to moderate benefits for mood and perceived effort in 139 studies; can speed up beat-matched walking |
| Audiobooks only on walks | One trial found more gym visits at first, fading over time; not tested on walking |
| Walking groups | Modest drops in blood pressure and resting heart rate in 42 studies |
| Games, streaks and challenges | Gamified programs added about 1,600 steps a day on average, with very mixed results |
| New routes, silent walks, photos, micro-goals | Not tested for walking boredom; reasonable ideas to try |
Audio
A 2020 meta-analysis in Psychological Bulletin (Terry and colleagues) of 139 studies and 3,599 participants found that listening to music during exercise was associated with more positive mood (effect size 0.48), better physical performance (0.31), lower perceived exertion (0.22) and slightly more efficient oxygen use (0.15), which are small-to-moderate effects. A 2013 study in PLoS ONE (Leman and colleagues) found that some music is "activating" and speeds up beat-synchronised walking, while other music is "relaxing" and slows it. So choosing music with a tempo near your target pace is reasonable. As a reference, the CADENCE-Adults research found that about 100 steps a minute is moderate-intensity walking and about 120 is brisk (power walking), but we found no study supporting a specific "120 to 130 BPM" rule.
The idea of keeping a podcast or audiobook for walks only is called temptation bundling. In a 2014 field experiment in Management Science (Milkman, Minson and Volpp), 226 people got gym-only access to engaging audiobooks, or encouragement to listen only at the gym, or nothing. At first, the gym-only group visited 51% more often and the encouraged group 29% more often, but the effects declined over time, particularly after Thanksgiving, and 61% of participants later paid to keep gym-only access. It was about the gym, not walking, and a larger later experiment reportedly found a smaller effect. We couldn't find a source for the claims that audiobooks "doubled walking time" or that podcasts make a walk "feel like 10 minutes."
Walking with others
A review of walking groups (Hanson and Jones, British Journal of Sports Medicine, 2015) of 42 studies and 1,843 participants found modest improvements in blood pressure and resting heart rate, as covered in walking and heart health. That doesn't test whether groups are more fun, but it shows they aren't just a pleasant extra. The earlier page's statements that conversations while walking are "more honest" and that a dog is "the world's best walking motivator" aren't from studies; for what is known about dog owners, see walking with a dog.
Tracking, streaks and challenges
A 2022 meta-analysis in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (Mazeas and colleagues) of 16 randomised trials with 2,407 participants found that gamified interventions had a small to medium effect on physical activity (Hedges g = 0.42). For daily steps the average increase was about 1,610 (95% CI 372 to 2,847), but the studies varied widely, and the authors of a letter responding to the paper noted that the findings may not apply to older adults. That supports game-style features in general; we haven't found evidence on streaks or friendly competitions specifically, so the earlier page's description of streaks as "the most underrated walking motivator" is opinion. An earlier JAMA review (Bravata, 2007) found that pedometer users walked about 2,500 more steps a day than controls, and that having a step goal predicted bigger increases (see walking for beginners).
Ideas we haven't seen tested
This part is our suggestion. Changing routes, walking to a destination, trying a new neighbourhood, setting small goals along the way, taking a few photos, or doing a silent walk are cheap things to try, and people have different tastes. We haven't found trials showing any of them reduces boredom or increases how much people walk. The silent, attention-focused walk has some research behind it in a small trial; see walking meditation. Habits take time to settle: the habit-formation study most often cited (Lally and colleagues, 2010) found a median of 66 days, with a wide range, so give a new routine a few weeks before judging it.
How we'd pick
Try one or two things for a couple of weeks and see what keeps you going: music or a podcast you enjoy, a friend or group, or a tracker with a goal. Our walking and creativity page notes that if you want to think, audio with words may get in the way, though that is untested. If you'd like an hourly view of your day, StepMax, our own free app, has one: Android, iPhone.
Sources
- Terry PC, Karageorghis CI, Curran ML, Martin OV, Parsons-Smith RL. Effects of music in exercise and sport: a meta-analytic review. Psychological Bulletin. 2020;146(2):91-117. ovid.com
- Leman M, Moelants D, Varewyck M, Styns F, van Noorden L, Martens J-P. Activating and relaxing music entrains the speed of beat synchronized walking. PLoS ONE. 2013;8:e67932. sciencedirect.com (citing page)
- Milkman KL, Minson JA, Volpp KGM. Holding the Hunger Games hostage at the gym: an evaluation of temptation bundling. Management Science. 2014;60(2):283-299. PubMed
- Hanson S, Jones A. Is there evidence that walking groups have health benefits? A systematic review and meta-analysis. British Journal of Sports Medicine. 2015. PubMed
- Mazeas A, Duclos M, Pereira B, Chalabaev A. Evaluating the effectiveness of gamification on physical activity: systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. Journal of Medical Internet Research. 2022;24(1):e26779. PubMed
- Bravata DM, Smith-Spangler C, Sundaram V, et al. Using pedometers to increase physical activity and improve health: a systematic review. JAMA. 2007;298(19):2296-2304. PubMed
- Lally P, van Jaarsveld CHM, Potts HWW, Wardle J. How are habits formed: modelling habit formation in the real world. European Journal of Social Psychology. 2010;40(6):998-1009. wiley.com
Correction note: an earlier version of this page said a podcast makes a 30-minute walk feel like 10, that audiobooks doubled walking time, that a 120 to 130 BPM playlist makes brisk walking effortless, that conversations while walking are more honest, that a dog is the world's best walking motivator, that streaks are the most underrated motivator, and that photos and silent walks transform walking. We could not support those, so they were removed or reframed as untested ideas; the tips with research behind them are described above. We checked the figures against published abstracts and summaries on October 2, 2026. The Leman study is cited through a page that references it, the later temptation-bundling replication is mentioned from secondary summaries, and the Hanson review is cited as on our heart health page. This article is for informational purposes and does not replace medical advice. This is general information, not medical advice.