Want to Live Longer? Pick Up the Pace!
Hurry to the bus stop. Rush up the stairs. Play tag with your kids. Romp with the dog. Vacuum the living room with a little extra zing. Increasing the vigor and gusto of our daily activities could have a substantial impact on our longevity, according to a fascinating new study of movement intensity and mortality. The study finds that as few as three minutes a day of vigorous everyday activity is linked to a 40 percent lower risk of premature death in adults, even when they do not otherwise exercise at all.
“It is fantastic” research, said Ulrik Wisloff, the director of the K.G. Jebsen Center for Exercise in Medicine at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim. He has extensively studied activity and longevity but was not involved in the new study.
The study’s results join mounting scientific evidence that adding a little intensity to our lives pays big dividends for our health, without requiring extra equipment, instruction, gym memberships or time. The idea that how we move influences how long we live is hardly new. Plenty of research links regular exercise with longer life spans, including the formal public health exercise guidelines, which recommend at least 150 minutes a week of moderate exercise for health and longevity.
Excerpted from The Washington Post
