A surprisingly small amount of daily activity can reduce your risk of death

Researchers have revealed how much physical activity you need each day to balance out the negative effects of a sedentary lifestyle, and it’s a lot less than you might think. Here’s what was found and why it could save your life. 

Humans aren’t as active as our ancient ancestors but you don’t need to chase down a wooly mammoth in order to stay healthy. In fact, getting as little as 20 to 25 minutes of physical activity each day can do a lot for your health.  

Specifically, getting just under a half hour of physical activity each day can offset your heightened risks of death from living a sedentary lifestyle according to a new study that was published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine. 

The small amount of physical activity required each day was so potent that it helped lower the risks of a lifestyle dominated by low activity regardless of how many hours a person spent sedentary, the study’s authors said in the conclusion of their research. 

Previous research into the sitting times of developed nations has revealed that those living in Western countries spend as much as fifty to seventy percent of their days sitting, which is quite a lot when you think about it. 

However, spending some time engaging in moderate-to-physical activity can negate any damage you are probably doing to your health according to the new research, which went about looking at the topic in a completely novel way. 

Most studies examining physical activity and its relation to health outcomes tend to rely on aggregated data according to News Medical Net. To overcome this flaw, researchers pooled data from four different groups fitted with activity trackers. 

The analysis looked at data from the Norwegian Tromsø Study 2015–16; the Swedish Healthy Ageing Initiative 2012–19; the Norwegian National Physical Activity Survey 2008–09; and the US National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2003–06.

Over 12,000 people above the age of 50 were included in the analysis and this gave the researchers a solid base of information from which to draw their conclusions. Here's what they found.

Nearly half of the people studied (5943) racked up roughly 10.5 hours of sedentary hours each day while over half (6042) spent more than 10.5 hours sedentary each day. That’s a lot of time in which their bodies weren’t moving. 

Researchers used death registries to discover that over an average five-year period 807 people died with 357 being in the camp of those that spent 10.5 hours of sedentary each day while 448 were those who spent over 10.5 sedentary.

The study also revealed that being sedentary for more than 12 hours a day heightened the risk of death by 38% compared to people who were only sedentary for 8 hours a day, but that was only among those who were physically active for at least 22 minutes each day.

Being physically active for more than 22 minutes a day was associated with a lower risk of death and Medical New Net noted “the association between sedentary time and death was largely influenced by the amount of moderate to vigorous physical activity.”

The medical news outlet went on to explain that the study found 10 minutes of physical activity lowered the risk of death by 15% in those who spent less than 10.5 hours a day sedentary. It also lowered the risk of death by 35% in those who spent more than 10.5 hours sedentary each day. 

Unfortunately, the study was only an observational one, and as such, should be taken with a grain of salt when determining your own health needs. However, it certainly pointed people in the right direction, helping the world understand the importance of exercise for maintain health. 

“Efforts to promote physical activity may have substantial health benefits for individuals, and small amounts of [moderate-to-high physical activity] may be an effective strategy to ameliorate mortality risk associated with high sedentary time,” the authors concluded.