You don’t have to be a runner or participate in sports to reap the benefits of exercise; a brisk walk throughout the day is sufficient, according to UK research.
It discovered that if everyone did just 11 minutes of daily activity, one out of every ten premature deaths could be avoided.
However, most people do not get the recommended 150 minutes of exercise per week.
However, doing some exercise is preferable to doing nothing, according to researchers from the University of Cambridge.
The NHS recommends that everyone engage in 150-300 minutes of heart-rate-raising physical activity per week, or 75-150 minutes of vigorous activity per week.
The study team examined hundreds of previous studies on the benefits of physical activity and concluded that even doing half the recommended amount could prevent one in every 20 cases of cardiovascular disease and one in every 30 cases of cancer.
This equates to 75 minutes per week – or 11 minutes per day – of biking, fast walking, hiking, dancing, or tennis.
“You should feel yourself moving, your heart should beat faster, but you won’t necessarily feel out of breath,” says study leader Dr. Soren Brage.
According to the findings, doing so reduces the risk of developing heart disease and stroke by 17% and cancer by 7%.
In the long run, regular exercise reduces body fat and blood pressure while also improving fitness, sleep, and heart health.
Exercise benefits were even greater for certain cancers, such as head and neck, gastric, leukaemia, and blood cancers, but lower for lung, liver, endometrial, colon, and breast cancers.
Exercise is not easy for everyone; two out of every three people say they do less than 150 minutes (2.5 hours) of moderate exercise per week, and fewer than one in ten manage more than 300 minutes (five hours) per week.
“If the idea of 150 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity per week seems daunting to you, then our findings should be good news,” says Dr. Brage.
“If you find that 75 minutes per week is manageable, you could try gradually increasing to the full recommended amount.”