Want to Live a Long, Healthy Life? Do This for 30 Minutes Each Day
If you’ve been using your busy schedule as an excuse for not getting much physical activity, you’re about to lose your best defense. Regular walking can help you live longer, even if you don’t get the recommended amount of weekly exercise. Further, that’s especially true for older adults.
Adults ages 18 to 64 are supposed to get 150 minutes (2.5) hours of physical activity every week, but only about half of all US adults actually do. Even fewer older adults, ages 65 to 74, get the recommended amount of physical activity – just 42%.
For a study published in the American Journal of Preventative Medicine, researchers analyzed information from nearly 140,000 U.S. adults in their 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s and followed them for 13 years. The participants answered questions pertaining to how much time they spent being physically active during the week, and which types of activities they engaged in.
If you can’t spend 2.5 hours being physically active in the course of a week, don’t write off walking entirely. The researchers found that people who made the effort to get moving even a little bit saw the benefits walking has to offer.
Lead author Alpa Patel, a researcher with the American Cancer Society, said:
“In our study, close to 95% of people who engaged in any physical activity did some walking––but for half of those people, walking was the only moderate to vigorous exercise they got. Now we can see that it really does have real benefits.”
Read: Moderate Physical Activity Cuts Your Risk of 13 Types of Cancer
Those who said they walked regularly – even if it wasn’t enough to meet the exercise guidelines – were less likely to die during the study period than those who led a sedentary lifestyle. Volunteers who didn’t get any exercise were 26% more likely to die during the study period, compared with those who walked even a little bit, even if it was less than 2 hours.
Those findings held up after researchers accounted for smoking, obesity, chronic conditions (including diabetes), and time spent sitting down.
The seniors in the study walked at an average pace of 3 miles per hour, which is a 20-minute mile. This is a very normal, achievable pace for anyone.
Patel said:
“It’s faster than you’d walk in the grocery store, and it’s enough to get your heart rate up a little bit, but it’s not like they were power-walking or jogging. Walking is the most common type of physical activity that people engage in in the United States, so I was very, very happy to see these results.”
The researchers write in the report that doctors “should encourage patients to walk even if less than the recommended amount, especially as they age, for health and longevity.” [1]
They added:
“Walking has been described as the ‘perfect exercise’ because it is a simple action that is free, convenient, and does not require any special equipment or training, and can be done at any age.”
In addition, the researchers found that walking for the recommended 150 minutes per week or longer was linked to even more benefits. Adults who walked for 2.5 to 5 hours a week were 20% less likely to die from any cause, 30% less likely to die from respiratory disease, and 9% less likely to die from cancer during the study period, compared with those who spent less than 2 hours a week walking.
The team concluded:
“This study shows that engaging in walking is associated with increased longevity and has the potential to improve the public’s health significantly.”
Additional Sources: