A new study shows that small bouts of light physical activity are sufficient to increase lifespan in older men.
Government guidelines recommended that adults get at least 2 hours and Half an hour of moderate-intensity exercise each week. However, only about 1 / 2 of Americans actually meet those recommendations, as well as for seniors, they may seem hard to achieve. But a brand new report published within the British Journal of Sports Medicine suggests that there’s a way to tweak guidelines to make them more practical for seniors, while still maintaining health.
In the report, researchers looked at about 1,180 men – average age, 78 – who agreed to wear devices that measured their movements for seven days. They were followed for around five years. The researchers found that the overall amount of exercise, not necessarily just how long or how hard someone exercised inside a session, mattered most for longevity.
The men within the study didn’t even need to exercise for very long periods of time to experience positive results. Sporadic bouts of exercise during the day, even if each bout was under 10 minutes, had similar advantages to lifespan as exercising a lot more than 10 minutes at any given time. This process seemed to squeeze into men’s lives, too; 66% from the men in the study were able to meet their weekly recommended exercise if they made it happen in shorter bursts.
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Every Half an hour of sunshine intensity activity per day – like going on a walk or gardening – was associated with a 17% lower chance of early death in the study. Moderate-to-vigorous exercise had a level stronger connect to a longer life: doing the work was associated with a 33% decrease in death risk for every Half an hour of exercise. However, the truth that simple exercises still appeared to possess a notable longevity benefit is essential, the research authors write.
If more scientific studies are able to confirm the findings, it could claim that getting just a couple minutes of exercise at any given time – even when it’s light – can lower the chance of early death in males. The researchers conclude that their findings “could refine physical activity guidelines and make them more achievable for older adults with low activity levels: stressing the benefits of all activities, however modest, from light intensity upwards,” as well as encouraging people to inflict physical activity levels throughout the day.
