Many people struggle to muster the willpower to go jogging or drag themselves to the gym.
But research suggests even the exercise-averse may not be entirely doomed — as just one minute of vigorous activity a day is linked to a longer life.
The study, led by Professor Emmanuel Stamatakis of the University of Sydney, looked at nearly 3,300 Americans with an average age of about 51 who reported doing no structured exercise. They were asked to wear trackers on their wrists to log their movements.
It found that those who did just a minute of vigorous “incidental activity” a day — such as bounding up stairs, chasing after children or heaving heavy shopping bags — had a 38 per cent lower risk of dying over the following six years, compared to those who did none. Moreover, that exertion could be split into half a dozen ten-second bursts.
Vigorous “incidental activity” includes chasing after children or running up the stairs, according to the study
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“Short bursts of intermittent vigorous physical activity were associated with meaningful health benefits in a nationally representative sample of US adults,” the researchers said.
But before you throw out your gym membership, some caveats are in order. This kind of study cannot show cause and effect. It may be that people inclined to dart up the stairs are already a little healthier than those who opt for the escalator. Researchers tried to account for these differences, but the possibility remains.
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It has also firmly been established that more exercise is better for you; a minute a day is unlikely to impress your GP.
According to the NHS, adults aged 19 to 64 years old should do at least 150 minutes of moderate intensity or 75 minutes of vigorous intensity activity a week. However, a growing body of research supports the idea that short bursts may also do some good.
An earlier study, also led by Stamatakis, found that people who engaged in three or four short bouts of exercise a day, lasting about 4.5 minutes in total, were about 33 per cent less likely to die of heart disease during the seven years they were tracked, compared with those who did not.
They were also about 28 per cent less likely to die of cancer, or of any other cause.
These health gains were similar to those seen in other studies where people had deliberately set aside 75–150 minutes each week to be physically active, the researchers said.
“Our study shows similar benefits to high-intensity interval training can be achieved through increasing the intensity of incidental activities done as part of daily living,” Stamatakis said at the time.
“A few very short bouts totalling three to four minutes a day could go a long way, and there are many daily activities that can be tweaked to raise your heart rate for a minute or so.”
The study recognised that those who could endure 60 seconds of vigorous exercise were generally healthier
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The earlier research, which was published in the journal Nature Medicine, looked at more than 25,000 British adults with an average age of 62, who had signed up to the UK Biobank research project. Biobank participants tend to be relatively healthy. The new study, which has not yet been peer reviewed, looked at a group of American adults who were more likely to be overweight or obese.
The discrepancy in the results of two studies — the British cohort seemed to need more vigorous activity than the Americans for a roughly similar decrease in the risk of an early death — could be down to the differences between the two groups. In other words: those who are less fit may stand to gain more from small exertions because they have further to improve.