Adding a mere five minutes of brisk walking to your daily routine can slash your risk of an early death by a significant 10%, according to a major new international study. The findings offer a powerful and accessible message, particularly for older and less active individuals, that even minimal increases in movement yield substantial health rewards.
The Power of Minutes: Small Changes, Big Impact
The research, published in The Lancet and led by the Norwegian School of Sports Sciences, tracked the activity levels of 135,000 adults. This included 95,000 middle-aged and older participants from the UK, alongside 40,000 people from Norway, Sweden, and the United States.
Analysing data from the UK Biobank component, scientists found that replacing 30 minutes of sedentary time each day with light activity could prevent 4.5% of deaths among the study's generally inactive adults. For those able to incorporate more vigorous movement, the benefits were even greater: an extra 10 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise daily was linked to a 15% reduction in mortality risk.
Dr Daniel Bailey, a sedentary behaviour expert at Brunel University London who was not involved in the study, emphasised the feasibility of the findings. "The really promising finding is that just an extra 5 minutes per day can help. This should be achievable for most people," he stated. He clarified that moderate activities are those that make you "breathe a bit heavier and feel warmer," such as a brisk walk, gardening, or energetic housework.
Every Movement Counts Towards a Longer, Healthier Life
The study addresses concerns that inactive older adults may feel overwhelmed by official exercise guidelines and give up entirely. The core message is that every minute of movement contributes to better health, with the most dramatic gains seen when previously inactive people start doing any activity at all.
"A clear message we want to get across is that every movement counts and getting inactive people to do some activity is where we see the biggest gains in health. Every minute counts," Dr Bailey added.
Co-author Professor Melody Ding from the University of Sydney reinforced this, noting that while not everyone can meet the WHO's recommendation of 150 minutes of weekly activity, smaller, realistic goals still have a massive population health impact. "Our data underscore the large impact of realistic and achievable behaviour goals," she said.
The Combined Effect of Sleep, Diet, and Exercise
Supporting evidence for the power of incremental change comes from a separate study in eClinicalMedicine, which also utilised UK Biobank data. This research outlined a holistic blueprint for longevity, examining the combined effects of sleep, exercise, and diet.
It found that individuals with the best sleep, highest activity levels, and healthiest diets lived an impressive 9.35 years longer than those with the poorest habits in all three areas. Crucially, they also enjoyed more of those extra years in good health.
The researchers calculated a "combined dose" of improvement that could add one year to the lifespan of those with the worst habits. This dose consisted of just five extra minutes of sleep per night, two additional minutes of moderate-to-vigorous activity, and half an extra portion of vegetables daily.
The paper concluded that these "small, concurrent improvements" were associated with "clinically meaningful theoretical gains in lifespan and healthspan." Together, these studies provide a compelling, evidence-based argument that seemingly minor daily adjustments can collectively forge a path to a significantly longer and healthier life.
