a study<\/a> from the University of Sydney found that even small changes to three key behaviours \u2013 sleep, diet, and exercise \u2013 can have significant benefits. For those with the least healthy habits, an additional five minutes of sleep, two minutes more exercise and minimal dietary adjustments could add another year of life.<\/p>\n\u201cAll those tiny behaviours we change can actually have a very meaningful impact, and they add up over time to make a big difference in our longevity,\u201d said Nicholas Koemel, the lead author of the study.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m all for barely perceptible lifestyle adjustments, but how easy are they to incorporate into a typical slothful day?<\/p>\n
Sleep<\/p>\n
The study\u2019s least healthy cohort got just five and a half hours of sleep a night, and recorded health benefits from an increase of up to three extra hours.<\/p>\n
I average six and a half to seven hours, and could certainly benefit from more, but I\u2019m reluctant to move my bedtime because I once spent a week going to bed at 9pm for an article, and it messed with my sleep patterns for weeks afterwards. I decide to tack on the extra minutes at the other end. Inevitably, I wake up at the normal time, will myself back to sleep, and overshoot.<\/p>\n
\u201cHaving a duvet day?\u201d my wife asks, pulling open the curtains. She is already dressed to go out; it\u2019s even possible she\u2019s just come back.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m extending my life span,\u201d I say. \u201cAs we speak.\u201d<\/p>\n
While I could get used to rising at 9.30am every day, it does represent a material disruption to routine. Among other things, I miss my second cup of coffee.<\/p>\n
Diet<\/p>\n
The study used a \u201cdiet quality score\u201d based on a 29-item questionnaire. The group with the lowest average score, 36.9 out of 100, needed only a five point top-up (alongside the extra shut-eye and exercise) to increase their lifespan by a year. Five points equates to an extra half-serving of vegetables per day.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m hoping this also equates to a single apple I would never normally have, because there\u2019s a bowl of applesright here in the kitchen. It is almost literally low-hanging fruit, and the point is not to make any effort.<\/p>\n
My family get there before me: what had been five apples in a bowl in the morning is just two apples by the afternoon. Photograph: Alicia Canter\/The Guardian<\/p>\n
Where is this apple supposed to fit into my day? Eleven o\u2019clock seems too early \u2013 I\u2019ve only recently had breakfast and I\u2019m already starting to think about lunch. It will have to wait until the afternoon.<\/p>\n
My family get there before me: what had been five apples in a bowl in the morning is just two apples by the afternoon. Both are suboptimal; one is soft and bruised, the other seems to be an improbable survivor from last month. I choose the least woolly of the two and duly collect my dietary quality points, but there\u2019s no question: we have strayed into hardship.<\/p>\n
Exercise<\/p>\n
How do you incorporate an extra two minutes of exercise into a day that contains no real exercise?<\/p>\n
\u2018I can\u2019t believe I\u2019m going to have to do all this stuff for a whole extra year.\u2019 Photograph: Alicia Canter\/The Guardian<\/p>\n
I own a posh skipping rope from a previous doomed fitness attempt. It came in a sack bearing the words: \u201cBeast Your Goals\u201d. Skipping seems like an easy way to jam in two minutes of exertion, at least until you\u2019ve done one minute and realise another would be impossible without a day off in between.<\/p>\n
I decide the simplest thing to do would be to finish my grudging afternoon dog walk with a two-minute sprint. Unfortunately the dog has never seen me run before, and doesn\u2019t know what to make of it: should she chase, or be chased? In the absence of clear orders she decides it\u2019s safest to try to bring me down like quarry.<\/p>\n
Luckily it\u2019s cold and raining, so no one is around to see. I can\u2019t believe I\u2019m going to have to do all this stuff for a whole year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A week into the first lockdown of the pandemic, I vowed I would never set foot in a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":248078,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[103,61,60,446],"class_list":{"0":"post-248077","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nutrition","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-nutrition"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=248077"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248077\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/248078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=248077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=248077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=248077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}